#University Library Automation

[russmorris]

A.R.S.

Pentax K10D + Lensbaby Composer, Sweet 35

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Humans are not perfectly vigilant

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE (Apr 12), and beyond!

Here's a fun AI story: a security researcher noticed that large companies' AI-authored source-code repeatedly referenced a nonexistent library (an AI "hallucination"), so he created a (defanged) malicious library with that name and uploaded it, and thousands of developers automatically downloaded and incorporated it as they compiled the code:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

These "hallucinations" are a stubbornly persistent feature of large language models, because these models only give the illusion of understanding; in reality, they are just sophisticated forms of autocomplete, drawing on huge databases to make shrewd (but reliably fallible) guesses about which word comes next:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Guessing the next word without understanding the meaning of the resulting sentence makes unsupervised LLMs unsuitable for high-stakes tasks. The whole AI bubble is based on convincing investors that one or more of the following is true:

There are low-stakes, high-value tasks that will recoup the massive costs of AI training and operation;

There are high-stakes, high-value tasks that can be made cheaper by adding an AI to a human operator;

Adding more training data to an AI will make it stop hallucinating, so that it can take over high-stakes, high-value tasks without a "human in the loop."

These are dubious propositions. There's a universe of low-stakes, low-value tasks – political disinformation, spam, fraud, academic cheating, nonconsensual porn, dialog for video-game NPCs – but none of them seem likely to generate enough revenue for AI companies to justify the billions spent on models, nor the trillions in valuation attributed to AI companies:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

The proposition that increasing training data will decrease hallucinations is hotly contested among AI practitioners. I confess that I don't know enough about AI to evaluate opposing sides' claims, but even if you stipulate that adding lots of human-generated training data will make the software a better guesser, there's a serious problem. All those low-value, low-stakes applications are flooding the internet with botshit. After all, the one thing AI is unarguably very good at is producing bullshit at scale. As the web becomes an anaerobic lagoon for botshit, the quantum of human-generated "content" in any internet core sample is dwindling to homeopathic levels:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/inhuman-centipede/#enshittibottification

This means that adding another order of magnitude more training data to AI won't just add massive computational expense – the data will be many orders of magnitude more expensive to acquire, even without factoring in the additional liability arising from new legal theories about scraping:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

That leaves us with "humans in the loop" – the idea that an AI's business model is selling software to businesses that will pair it with human operators who will closely scrutinize the code's guesses. There's a version of this that sounds plausible – the one in which the human operator is in charge, and the AI acts as an eternally vigilant "sanity check" on the human's activities.

For example, my car has a system that notices when I activate my blinker while there's another car in my blind-spot. I'm pretty consistent about checking my blind spot, but I'm also a fallible human and there've been a couple times where the alert saved me from making a potentially dangerous maneuver. As disciplined as I am, I'm also sometimes forgetful about turning off lights, or waking up in time for work, or remembering someone's phone number (or birthday). I like having an automated system that does the robotically perfect trick of never forgetting something important.

There's a name for this in automation circles: a "centaur." I'm the human head, and I've fused with a powerful robot body that supports me, doing things that humans are innately bad at.

That's the good kind of automation, and we all benefit from it. But it only takes a small twist to turn this good automation into a nightmare. I'm speaking here of the reverse-centaur: automation in which the computer is in charge, bossing a human around so it can get its job done. Think of Amazon warehouse workers, who wear haptic bracelets and are continuously observed by AI cameras as autonomous shelves shuttle in front of them and demand that they pick and pack items at a pace that destroys their bodies and drives them mad:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

Automation centaurs are great: they relieve humans of drudgework and let them focus on the creative and satisfying parts of their jobs. That's how AI-assisted coding is pitched: rather than looking up tricky syntax and other tedious programming tasks, an AI "co-pilot" is billed as freeing up its human "pilot" to focus on the creative puzzle-solving that makes coding so satisfying.

But an hallucinating AI is a terrible co-pilot. It's just good enough to get the job done much of the time, but it also sneakily inserts booby-traps that are statistically guaranteed to look as plausible as the good code (that's what a next-word-guessing program does: guesses the statistically most likely word).

This turns AI-"assisted" coders into reverse centaurs. The AI can churn out code at superhuman speed, and you, the human in the loop, must maintain perfect vigilance and attention as you review that code, spotting the cleverly disguised hooks for malicious code that the AI can't be prevented from inserting into its code. As "Lena" writes, "code review [is] difficult relative to writing new code":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773779967521780169

Why is that? "Passively reading someone else's code just doesn't engage my brain in the same way. It's harder to do properly":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773780355708764665

There's a name for this phenomenon: "automation blindness." Humans are just not equipped for eternal vigilance. We get good at spotting patterns that occur frequently – so good that we miss the anomalies. That's why TSA agents are so good at spotting harmless shampoo bottles on X-rays, even as they miss nearly every gun and bomb that a red team smuggles through their checkpoints:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

"Lena"'s thread points out that this is as true for AI-assisted driving as it is for AI-assisted coding: "self-driving cars replace the experience of driving with the experience of being a driving instructor":

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773841546753831283

In other words, they turn you into a reverse-centaur. Whereas my blind-spot double-checking robot allows me to make maneuvers at human speed and points out the things I've missed, a "supervised" self-driving car makes maneuvers at a computer's frantic pace, and demands that its human supervisor tirelessly and perfectly assesses each of those maneuvers. No wonder Cruise's murderous "self-driving" taxis replaced each low-waged driver with 1.5 high-waged technical robot supervisors:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

AI radiology programs are said to be able to spot cancerous masses that human radiologists miss. A centaur-based AI-assisted radiology program would keep the same number of radiologists in the field, but they would get less done: every time they assessed an X-ray, the AI would give them a second opinion. If the human and the AI disagreed, the human would go back and re-assess the X-ray. We'd get better radiology, at a higher price (the price of the AI software, plus the additional hours the radiologist would work).

But back to making the AI bubble pay off: for AI to pay off, the human in the loop has to reduce the costs of the business buying an AI. No one who invests in an AI company believes that their returns will come from business customers to agree to increase their costs. The AI can't do your job, but the AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI anyway – that pitch is the most successful form of AI disinformation in the world.

An AI that "hallucinates" bad advice to fliers can't replace human customer service reps, but airlines are firing reps and replacing them with chatbots:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know

An AI that "hallucinates" bad legal advice to New Yorkers can't replace city services, but Mayor Adams still tells New Yorkers to get their legal advice from his chatbots:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/03/nycs-government-chatbot-is-lying-about-city-laws-and-regulations/

The only reason bosses want to buy robots is to fire humans and lower their costs. That's why "AI art" is such a pisser. There are plenty of harmless ways to automate art production with software – everything from a "healing brush" in Photoshop to deepfake tools that let a video-editor alter the eye-lines of all the extras in a scene to shift the focus. A graphic novelist who models a room in The Sims and then moves the camera around to get traceable geometry for different angles is a centaur – they are genuinely offloading some finicky drudgework onto a robot that is perfectly attentive and vigilant.

But the pitch from "AI art" companies is "fire your graphic artists and replace them with botshit." They're pitching a world where the robots get to do all the creative stuff (badly) and humans have to work at robotic pace, with robotic vigilance, in order to catch the mistakes that the robots make at superhuman speed.

Reverse centaurism is brutal. That's not news: Charlie Chaplin documented the problems of reverse centaurs nearly 100 years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film)

As ever, the problem with a gadget isn't what it does: it's who it does it for and who it does it to. There are plenty of benefits from being a centaur – lots of ways that automation can help workers. But the only path to AI profitability lies in reverse centaurs, automation that turns the human in the loop into the crumple-zone for a robot:

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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Jorge Royan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Munich_-_Two_boys_playing_in_a_park_-_7328.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

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CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[regular-gnome]

hey..

at what point do collectors opt to turn things from puppets to scrolls? I feel like turning an entire living creature into [a piece of paper] is very complicated, while turning them into simple puppets is easier because they keep all the same parts, just simplified and wood?

It is! It depends on the person's proficiency and understanding of the mechanism regarding when and how they change the creature. Once someone gets good at it, the creature can be transformed into a lifeless object without it dying in the process, and they will move on to more complex and efficient ways.

The way I see it, archiving is a form of information compression and storage—and there is A LOT of information. When looking at Earth creatures we have everything from single-cell bacteria to whales that range up to 100 quadrillion cells, all with different sizes. The smallest single-cell critter is 0.3 μm, while the largest single cell is an ostrich egg that can get to 18 cm. So it's not just noting "a cell"—there's also a lot of information about the cell content, size, the DNA, current water, and oxygen levels, what protein it contains and how much. Then there are spatial dimensions. (While we can consider there being more, especially in fiction, I’m sticking to three; trying to visualize four fills me with frustration and existential dread xD) Every cell has its place in space in relation to the others, and all the contents' relations are also important. If, suddenly, all histones materialize inside a mitochondria instead of the nucleus, we can have a problem. Additionally, physical and chemical processes gotta be considered. There's electricity powering our brains, hearts, running nerves, air in airways traveling to lungs, chemical signals traveling between synapses that also need to be accounted for. So, you have all the contents in space, their vectors, and building blocks. Thats a ton to save. This information has to be compressed to be preserved in an organized manner while also remaining lossless so that when returned to its original shape, it's as it was. Not even mentioning that in intelligent beings, there are also minds to take care of. Jellyfish might be fine after 100 years in a static void, but a human? Yhhhhh.

I think the mechanism would work by saving information in intangible magic and assigning it to a physical medium—be it a statue, doll, book, or scroll. If it is physical and can carry information, it can be used. We can argue the mind is part of the soul, or it is a biochemical process, but the fact is nobody really knows for sure what it is and Im not a theolog, so for the sake of this universe, I'll say it's something that occupies the same space magic does and is influenced by chemical processes, meeeeaning it can also be tricked by them. And the magic.

The first degree of preservation would be spells that only change the material but keep all shapes and info in place. This wouldn't require much thought while executing and could be "automated" or worse, taught to mortals (if they have enough magic to power the spell), like petrification or changing someone into wood, metal, or any other solid material. It's not perfect, if the structure is damaged, the spatial information is damaged too. Breaking is one thing, but imagine if the statue melts.

The next step would be assigning objects with some compression and change, like toys and dolls. I feel like there would need to be a system like a content library, so not every single atom is saved each time, but chemical structures like nucleotides in DNA (the ATGC thingies) would just have a shortcut. Larger repeating patterns could also be assigned their own id to save data, and it would slowly stack up. While things are written in intangible magic form and anchored to the medium, the medium can be somewhat customized, like the decorations the Collector added to the dolls. The mind, running in controlled magic, can also be affected, as we saw with Collie trying to scare them and Luz’s dream. On the spell keeping the preserved critter stable has a link to what shortcut it uses so with countless diffrent worlds and structres it wouldnt mix up.

Then we go further into compression, reducing size and dimensions until we reach a point where one axis is almost entirely removed, and we end up with a scroll. Then there are other things—creatures saved as amber miniatures, snow globes, scrolls, or drawings, sometimes purely to annoy the sibling that has to deal with the creature in unhandy form. A more permanent binding would be in a book that can contain a bunch of different animals. Rebinding for long-term preservation is the Curator’s job.

Looking at Earth creatures, eucariotic life shares ancestry with some ancient bacteria that decided to rebel and started to cooperate, so we share similarities even with distant organisms in some strutures since they come from each other. So when it comes to preserving whole populations with relations, the library of compression doesn’t have to be separate for every single animal or plant. For each section of the archive, there would be a common library of building blocks, and scrolls being somewhat separate carrying the exact instructions for body arrangement and the soul/mind/the part that makes them alive attached.

Next is unpacking the information. I think this requires the ability to interpret and recreate what was saved that mortals lack. While they couldn't really unpetrify others, a collector could (assuming the mind hadn’t deteriorated into a husk). In the case of an automated spell, I think it would result in a very lossy transmutation—like a jpg losing pixels, the creature might lose like heart funtion. The Collector's spell also looked temporary or incomplete since an influx of other types of magic (like in Amity or Raine’s case) was able to push back on it. That might also be why they were conscious in the form they were in. Not meant for long just enough to take them to archive in normal conditions. When a creature is heavily compressed, it needs external force to rebuild, as it's essentially written fully in magic. That’s what I think happened to the Owl Beast. Lilith released it from the medium, but since it wasn’t fully rebuilt, it being a magic form attached itself to a magic source.

SO YEAH, its a process that takes quite a while for them to master and it comes with experience. But when experience is based on life it often makes it hard to practice so those with less empathetic approach master it faster. Thanks for the ask! I was dying to talk about that for such a long time and that was a perfect thing to organise thoughts

[mariacallous]

Across the United States, newsrooms are cutting staff as the rippling effects of digitization debilitate traditional operations and revenues. Earlier this year, Politico reported that more than 500 professionals from print, broadcast, and digital media were laid off in January 2024 alone. This number continues to grow as artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated reporting functions see more use in the sector. Journalists of color have been most affected by these cuts. In a 2022 survey of laid off professionals, the Institute for Independent Journalists found that 42% of laid off professionals were people of color, despite comprising only 17% of the total workforce. As newsrooms increasingly turn to AI to manage staff shortages or increase efficiency, how will journalistic integrity be impacted? More importantly, how will newsrooms navigate the underrepresentation of diverse voices who contribute to the universe of more informed news perspectives?  

Launched in 2023, the Brookings AI Equity Lab is committed to gathering interdisciplinary insights and approaches to AI design and deployment. In July 2024, we convened news staff, other content stewards (e.g. library professionals, academics, and policymakers), and technologists (“contributing experts”) to assess the opportunities and threats that AI presents to traditional journalism. While the debate is far from over, the recommendations from contributing experts were that AI can radically modernize newsrooms, but that its implementation still must be done in support of journalists and other content creators of color, who bring their own lived experiences to news and can quell the growth of mis- and disinformation that emerges in an increasingly digital world. 

[finnlongman]

Cambridge University libraries work on a system of automatic renewals. Functionally, this means you can keep a book indefinitely until somebody recalls it, at which point you have a couple of days to return it before you start getting increasingly unhappy emails reminding you that it's overdue (they have largely abolished fines, but the automated emails don't seem to know that, and continue to threaten you with them).

For the most part, if you're working on a fairly niche topic, you're likely to have months of uninterrupted usage of a book. Which is great. In practice, however, I will go months with none of my books being recalled, and then I'll leave the city (on holiday, or for a conference), and the day after I leave, somebody will recall a bunch of books that are currently locked in my house where nobody can get to them. They never recall them when I'm around! But every time I go away, this happens!

And then I have to come home, hastily type up all my notes while still in the post-travel recovery period, before shamefacedly showing up at the library with a severely overdue book and an apology. It's embarrassing. It keeps happening. I'm sure they think I'm lying about going away but whoever is recalling my books just has terrible timing.

(Those that were recalled while I was in Ireland were particularly overdue, because I was there three weeks and then returned with COVID, and thus those books did Not go back in a timely manner.)

[manekapiyumawali]

Why Sabaragamuwa University is a Great Choice.

Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka (SUSL) is increasingly recognized for its technological advancement and innovation-driven environment, making it one of the leading universities in Sri Lanka in terms of technology. Here are the key reasons why SUSL stands out technologically.

Here’s why SUSL stands out as a technological powerhouse among Sri Lankan universities:

🔧1. Faculty of Technology

SUSL established a dedicated Faculty of Technology to meet the demand for tech-skilled graduates. It offers degree programs such as:

BTech in Information and Communication Technology

BTech in Engineering Technology

These programs combine practical experience in labs, workshops and real-world projects with a strong theoretical foundation.

🖥️2. Advanced IT Infrastructure

SUSL has modern computer labs, smart classrooms, and high-speed internet access across campus.

A robust Learning Management System (LMS) supports online learning and hybrid education models.

Students and lecturers use tools like Moodle, Zoom, and Google Classroom effectively.

🤖 3. Innovation & AI Research Support

SUSL promotes AI, Machine Learning, IoT, and Data Science in student research and final-year projects.

Competitions like Hackathons and Innovative Research Symposia encourage tech-driven solutions.

Students develop apps, smart systems, and automation tools (e.g., Ceylon Power Tracker project).

🌐 4. Industry Collaboration and Internships

SUSL connects students with the tech industry through:

Internships at leading tech firms

Workshops led by industry experts

Collaborative R&D projects with government and private sector entities

These connections help students gain hands-on experience in areas such as software engineering, networking, and data analytics that make them highly employable after graduation.

💡 5. Smart Campus Initiatives

SUSL is evolving into a Smart University, introducing systems that streamline academic life:

Digital student portals

Online registration and results systems

E-library and remote resource access

Campus Wi-Fi for academic use

These initiatives improve the student experience and create an efficient, technology-enabled environment.

🎓 6. Research in Emerging Technologies

The university is involved in pioneering research across emerging technological fields, including:

Agricultural tech (AgriTech)

Environmental monitoring using sensors

Renewable energy systems

Students and faculty publish research in international journals and participate in global tech events.

🏆 7. Recognition in National Competitions

SUSL students often reach fina rounds or win national competitions in coding, robotics, AI, and IoT innovation.

Faculty members are invited as tech advisors and conference speakers, reinforcing the university's expertise.

Sabaragamuwa University is actively shaping the future not only with technology, but by integrating technology into education, research and operations. This makes it a technological leader among Sri Lankan Universities. Visit the official university site here: Home | SUSL

[colleenfrakes]

I have a comic about library automation in this anthology, Universal Flaws of Robotics!

I also spoke with Benjamin Wright-Heuman to promote the anthology where we talked about AI, automation, the early days of CCS and how Star Trek and Critical Role are important to my creative process.

[maaarine]

Al helps scholars read scroll buried when Vesuvius erupted in AD79 (Ian Sample, The Guardian, Feb 5 2024)

"Scholars of antiquity believe they are on the brink of a new era of understanding after researchers armed with artificial intelligence read the hidden text of a charred scroll that was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago.

Hundreds of papyrus scrolls held in the library of a luxury Roman villa in Herculaneum were burned to a crisp when the town was devastated by the intense blast of heat, ash and pumice that destroyed nearby Pompeii in AD79.

Excavations in the 18th century recovered more than 1,000 whole or partial scrolls from the mansion, thought to be owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, but the black ink was unreadable on the carbonised papyri and the scrolls crumbled to pieces when researchers tried to open them.

The breakthrough in reading the ancient material came from the $1m Vesuvius Challenge, a contest launched in 2023 by Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, and Silicon Valley backers.

The competition offered prizes for extracting text from high-resolution CT scans of a scroll taken at Diamond, the UK’s national synchrotron facility in Oxfordshire. (…)

“It probably is Philodemus,” Fowler said of the author. “The style is very gnarly, typical of him, and the subject is up his alley.”

The scroll discusses sources of pleasure, touching on music and food – capers in particular – and whether the pleasure experienced from a combination of elements owes to the major or minor constituents, the abundant or the scare.

“In the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant,” the author writes.

“I think he’s asking the question: what is the source of pleasure in a mix of things? Is it the dominant element, is it the scarce element, or is it the mix itself?” said Fowler.

The author ends with a parting shot against his philosophical adversaries for having “nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or particular”. (…)

Beyond the hundreds of Herculaneum scrolls waiting to be read, many more may be buried at the villa, adding weight to arguments for fresh excavations.

The same technology could be applied to papyrus wrapped around Egyptian mummies, Fowler said.

These could include everything from letters and property deeds to laundry lists and tax receipts, shining light on the lives of ordinary ancient Egyptians.

“There are crates of this stuff in the back rooms of museums,” Fowler said.

The challenge continues this year with the goal to read 85% of the scroll and lay the foundations for reading all of those already excavated.

Scientists need to fully automate the process of tracing the surface of the papyrus inside each scroll and improve ink detection on the most damaged parts.

“When we launched this less than a year ago, I honestly wasn’t sure it’d work,” said Friedman.

“You know, people say money can’t buy happiness, but they have no imagination. This has been pure joy. It’s magical what happened, it couldn’t have been scripted better.”"

[redgriffun]

Writers and actors versus studios goes deeper than entertainment industry to the rotten core. For instance, remembering person on the-site-formerly-known-as-Twitter, who'd just found out his favourite lecturer of his online class had been deceased for two years and counting. In that time, as university owns his online teaching content, no bereaved are receiving royalties, there is no new lecturer hired, essays are marked by postgraduate students on insecure fragile contracts. Know someone (not deceased) to whom this has also happened. She quit academia, but that online content is still being used, free of charge. They can automate checkouts, at my old uni library they can replace librarians with machines and now cheap contract student 'services' staff (real issue pops up and real librarian pops out the locked and sealed back door. Seriously)

It's not just owning creative content and destroying livelihoods, it's that all 'customers' should know how little they are worth - auto generated AI content, old courses kept on dept usb for a hefty price tag, and I'm waiting for the checkouts replaced by Android with the computer box head with the smiling emoji face stuck to it 'have a nice day'

[ebookfriendly]

Freiburg University Library, rebuilt in 2015, houses 1,200 workspaces in four reading rooms. The library offers a system of automated checkout machines and 700,000 volumes that can be borrowed. 🔖 #libraries #books http://dlvr.it/T9Hvdn

[mariacallous]

Whether you're a student, a journalist, or a business professional, knowing how to do high-quality research and writing using trustworthy data and sources, without giving in to the temptation of AI or ChatGPT, is a skill worth developing.

As I detail in my book Writing That Gets Noticed, locating credible databases and sources and accurately vetting information can be the difference between turning a story around quickly or getting stuck with outdated information.

For example, several years ago the editor of Parents.com asked for a hot-take reaction to country singer Carrie Underwood saying that, because she was 35, she had missed her chance at having another baby. Since I had written about getting pregnant in my forties, I knew that as long as I updated my facts and figures, and included supportive and relevant peer-reviewed research, I could pull off this story. And I did.

The story ran later that day, and it led to other assignments. Here are some tips I’ve learned that you should consider mastering before you turn to automated tools like generative AI to handle your writing work for you.

Find Statistics From Primary Sources

Identify experts, peer-reviewed research study authors, and sources who can speak with authority—and ideally, offer easily understood sound bites or statistics on the topic of your work. Great sources include professors at major universities and media spokespeople at associations and organizations.

For example, writer and author William Dameron pinned his recent essay in HuffPost Personal around a statistic from the American Heart Association on how LGBTQ people experience higher rates of heart disease based on discrimination. Although he first found the link in a secondary source (an article in The New York Times), he made sure that he checked the primary source: the original study that the American Heart Association gleaned the statistic from. He verified the information, as should any writer, because anytime a statistic is cited in a secondary source, errors can be introduced.

Dive Into Databases

Jen Malia, author of The Infinity Rainbow Club series of children’s books (whom I recently interviewed on my podcast), recently wrote a piece about dinosaur-bone hunting for Business Insider, which she covers in her book Violet and the Jurassic Land Exhibit.

After a visit to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Malia, whose books are set in Philadelphia, found multiple resources online and on the museum site that gave her the history of the Bone Wars, information on the exhibits she saw, and the scientific names of the dinosaurs she was inspired by. She also used the Library of Congress’ website, which offers digital collections and links to the Library of Congress Newspaper Collection.

Malia is a fan of searching for additional resources and citable documents with Google Scholar. “If I find that a secondary source mentions a newspaper article, I’m going to go to the original newspaper article, instead of just stopping there and quoting,” she says.

Your local public library is a great source of free information, journals, and databases (even ones that generally require a subscription and include embargoed research). For example, your search should include everything from health databases (Sage Journals, Scopus, PubMed) to databases for academic sources and journalism (American Periodical Series Online, Statista, Academic Search Premier) and databases for news, trends, market research, and polls (the Harris Poll, Pew Research Center, Newsbank, ProPublica).

Even if you find a study or paper that you can’t access in one of those databases, consider reaching out to the study’s lead author or researcher. In many cases, they’re happy to discuss their work and may even share the study with you directly and offer to talk about their research.

Get a Good Filtering System

For journalist Paulette Perhach’s article on ADHD in The New York Times, she used Epic Research to see “dual team studies.” That's when two independent teams address the same topic or question, and ideally come to the same conclusions. She recommends locating research and experts via key associations for your topic. She also likes searching via Google Scholar but advises filtering it for studies and research in recent years to avoid using old data. She suggests keeping your links and research organized. “Always be ready to be peer-reviewed yourself,” Perhach says.

When you are looking for information for a story or project, you might be inclined to start with a regular Google search. But keep in mind that the internet is full of false information, and websites that look trustworthy can sometimes turn out to be businesses or companies with a vested interest in you taking their word as objective fact without additional scrutiny. Regardless of your writing project, unreliable or biased sources are a great way to torpedo your work—and any hope of future work.

For Accuracy, Go to the Government

Author Bobbi Rebell researched her book Launching Financial Grownups using the IRS’ website. “I might say that you can contribute a certain amount to a 401K, but it might be outdated because those numbers are always changing, and it’s important to be accurate,” she says. “AI and ChatGPT can be great for idea generation,” says Rebell, “but you have to be careful. If you are using an article someone was quoted in, you don’t know if they were misquoted or quoted out of context.”

If you use AI and ChatGPT for sourcing, you not only risk introducing errors, you risk introducing plagiarism—there is a reason OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is being sued for downloading information from all those books.

Historically, the Loudest Isn’t the Best

Audrey Clare Farley, who writes historical nonfiction, has used a plethora of sites for historical research, including Women Also Know History, which allows searches by expertise or area of study, and JSTOR, a digital library database that offers a number of free downloads a month. She also uses Chronicling America, a project from the Library of Congress which gathers old newspapers to show how a historical event was reported, and Newspapers.com (which you can access via free trial but requires a subscription after seven days).

When it comes to finding experts, Farley cautions against choosing the loudest voices on social media platforms. “They might not necessarily be the most authoritative. I vet them by checking if they have a history of publication on the topic, and/or educational credentials.”

When vetting an expert, look for these red flags:

You can’t find their work published or cited anywhere.

They were published in an obscure journal.

Their research is funded by a company, not a university, or they are the spokesperson for the company they are doing research for. (This makes them a public relations vehicle and not an appropriate source for journalism.)

And finally, the best endings for virtually any writing, whether it’s an essay, a research paper, an academic report, or a piece of investigative journalism, circle back to the beginning of the piece, and show your reader the transformation or the journey the piece has presented in perspective.

As always, your goal should be strong writing supported by research that makes an impact without cutting corners. Only then can you explore tools that might make the job a little easier, for instance by generating subheads or discovering a concept you might be missing—because then you'll have the experience and skills to see whether it's harming or helping your work.

[astrxlfinale]

"......You again."

"What?"

"I'm not talking about the shell you're donning, Mr.Stellaron."

Caelus found it ironic how that very name found itself mapped into this virtual space. Then again, hadn't 'loops' found themselves matted into the very fabric of space/time? The Simulated Universe is still it's own macrocasm that's filtered through countless memories, facts and hidden factors that even the great Geniuses themselves weren't privy too. This entire time, it led to plenty of moments like this.

Where he'd be beyond that damnable blade again, how it'd be gentle in the way it introduced the end, allowing the surface breaking sensation of momentary death to take place.

Through different mediums, it was the same result. Death. It would momentarily free him into that scope of the beyond for a fleeting moment after the one known as Polka Kakamond completed her work. Another genius down, an important figure swept up, all in the name of their own rhythm that guides them. It was enough to actually make a sharp sting of Elation stir through him, a joyous laughter at the unprecedented event.

"They can't see us, can they? Herta and the rest of 'em."

"Not at all. It'd be no different than trying to perceive my face."

Or the complete lack thereof. Through the image of a mercenary roaming through Sanguine library, which inevitably leads to haunting foresight made through the shapeless, sleeping speaker of future truths; Finality. The moment where they found themselves briefly released from the automated parts are drawn to a pause. Polka and Caelus would have a moment to exchange words. Even if that means for him to try peering in full futility of her face encased in static.

"So what gave exactly? I was here for my weekly business, I hadn't expected a whole damn hiccup to choke this to a standstill.

There's a contemplative pause as Polka mulls it over, glancing at her blade of 'release' with a faux sense of fascination. It looks as if both of them are vividly aware of the current circumstance at hand. Through the woven genius of Nous's followers, a plane hidden from time's touch was discovered.

Yet, it was time itself that offered such a boon to begin with.

"I needed to make a proper assessment. Death involving you as it stands would be unwise. At least with how my hands carry it. You're someone on Terminus's personal list of interest. Hadn't that puppet tucked with the Creed incited as much to you before?"

"........"

Interesting. "What? No shocked looks? Sudden barrage of questions? Pleas as if I'm lying about taking your life?"

It's in that moment the soldier Caelus inhabited gave a derisive snort to such thoughts.

"Dying has been weird for me to begin with."

"You know I hadn't meant--"

"Outside." He brisky interrupts. "On one of my first journeys, a frozen, Stellaron infused spear just blew open my heart and packed me up."

"....."

"And y'know what? No darkness, no greater planes. I've just met a goddamn Aeon and people packed with regrets before it just spat me back out."

In the end, that did it. Polka was unsure of what made such a violet twinge of amusement capture them, but it's this bizarre circumstance that felt authentic and less grandiose that prompted a released spiel of laughter. The sort that made the clack of their heels stumble back, all while this Caelus (Akivili) facsimile remained parked against the bookcase. All while the hidden Candlegrapho section remained stuck upon the shelves.

For a fleeting moment, the Trailblaze also found himself laughing amidst this sea of frozen, virtual memories.

"And the first thing-- Haaaah, you do is share it like that. After all the great spiels, holier than thou forethought, the pure and unfettered pride. I certainly have to say you're a weird one."

"I'm just no genius. And from all the examples I've seen, sure as hell in no rush to dive into being one."

The assassin's lips perked with a thoughtful hum as they walked towards him, allowing the looming presence of their shadow to encompass them. "Then I have to say, I'm looking forward to our encounter that lacks all the spatial pleasantries. My laundry list seems adamant in keeping me planted against droll company."

Somehow, it'd be amidst dangerous prophecies, the advent of unbound slaughter, and IPC conspiracies that a rather.. Pleasant time was derived. Things would end as they always did here, except, this blank space would be removed entirely from any notion of scripts and foresight. The fabled Genius slayer and newly awakened Trailblazer had carved out a gem of their very own. Yet, all good times have to finish at some point.

"So is it like that on the outside too?" Comes a curious, final question. "Your face I mean. Am I really going to be staring down a live glitch?"

"And what if you do?" She begins, fitting the puzzles of Sim Universe's reality with a trademark kiss upon the forehead. Time found itself organizing back on a proper track.

"Then I know the perfect calling card." Caelus finishes. "Can't really give a damn about your past due to being absent about my own, so how can I blame anyone?"

For an instant, it feels as if there was the illusion of a smile being perceived on his end. Faint, understanding before inevitably being drawn back to the 'work mode' of the matter at hand. Once that frantic skip transpired, revealing that all sights, scenes and sounds were being recorded again, even Polka's emotions sharpened to guide the Sim Universe's text.

Caelus was killed, that lethal blade was driven directly into his abdomen.

He was her accomplice.

[kailondo]

Blogg post #7 - Creating my Final Instrument

As part of our upcoming "Best of Booth" event on June 7th, I’ve started a unique final project that showcases everything I’ve learned in Max MSP over the past six months. The project revolves around creating a distinctive musical instrument for my performance, using live recordings of the djembe drum.

The core idea is to develop a patch that can sort these recordings into sample files and then play them back in polyrhythmic forms, essentially mimicking a djembe player. My djembe, a solo model, will be used for playing fills over the percussion sequences, triggering laser lights to enhance the visual aspect of the performance.

One of the main challenges is ensuring the patch isn’t too large to prevent my computer from crashing. With numerous processes running simultaneously, I’m considering using two computers to manage the load effectively. Another challenge is devising a way to change up the lighting show so it feels both natural and unexpected.

Here’s a breakdown of my current progress and plans:

Objective:

Initially, my goal was to trigger the venue's unique lights with a drum for our event. However, I’ve decided to complicate things slightly to simplify the drumming aspect for myself, as I’m not a seasoned djembe player.

Current Progress:

Inspired by a tutorial from UMUT Hearing Glass—a channel I highly recommend—I’ve developed a polyrhythmic generator. This system allows you to input a sample into one or more boxes, where a clock (which you can adjust) plays the sample in varying lengths. Currently, the system randomizes the sample length with each trigger, creating dynamic polyrhythms.

Lighting Patch:

The patch for controlling the lights is a bit more complex. It’s still under development, but the plan is to integrateing the Polyrymic patch with the Lighthing Patch. This will give me three weeks to practice and fine-tune the system, ensuring it’s engaging and reliable.

Potential of the Patch:

This project could fill several important gaps in the market if i would like to further develop it.

It eliminates the need for a lighting specialist/VDJ to control lighting, as the artist can manage this through triggers like MIDI, automation, or sound transients.

It enhances the artistic experience by directly linking the music and lighting, allowing for a more immersive atmosphere.

It simplifies the control interface, making it more adaptable and user-friendly.

Future Steps:

Before considering a public release, I need to:

Test the system extensively to ensure reliability, which involves accessing enough DMX lights to fill a DMX universe (512 channels).

Develop a user-friendly interface.

Find an affordable yet functional DMX unit.

Add lighting fixtures to the library, explaining each DMX channel's function.

I’m excited about the potential of this project and look forward to seeing how it evolves in the coming weeks.

[ghooostbaby]

maybe it's because i had to get a new computer for school in the last few months (and also being back in University post-pandemic when they figured out they can offload a lot of costly labour to provide university services by offloading the responsibilities to the students by making things "virtual/online/digital")

but it feels like a very steep curve of acceleration in just how mediated by online/digital/computer accounts and processes my life is ... everything i need to do or need to acquire I have to find some online platform that I need an account for and then have to go through all these extra identity verification methods to get into and then invariably some part of that process goes wrong, or i DO get into them and then something I'm trying to use them for and there's no accessible way to find support from a fellow human. just the coldly serene text of the FAQ pages spinning me in circles where the thing I need that should be so attainable I get error after error that I can't contact anyone to help me resolve... it's kind of grim and terrifying what the future is going to become with such an accelerated push into more and more computer automated technology.

i truly do feel like a ghost trapped in a machine ... it feels totally alienating. like I'm just floating in this vacuum of metal and 2020s website design unable to enter anywhere, just doing 2 step verifications and creating and entering account information and account synchronizations that go nowhere and i can never move beyond this place...

even my fucking university exams. all of them this semester are "remotely proctored", for courses required for the degree we have to provide our own space to do an exam (when there are reports every night on the news of the complete crisis of housing in this country) on our own computer, download a chrome plug-in that seems to be spyware that will monitor you through your webcam and microphone and record your screen, and if AI notices any flag behaviours notify your prof who will watch your video to see if you were cheating... the amount of logistical work I had to do to get set up for this exam, when I have enough to do with studying for the exam, it makes me so angry how much of University services are being eroded away and the work is being pushed off on students to do for free, actually we're PAYING THEM to do this. I even have a disability and asked the disability office for accommodations for the exam, because when I was at a University before I had always been told part of my accommodations were to do the exam in a separate space to help with distractions and anxiety... so if that's the case for an exam where the University handles all the logistical considerations, I would think it certainly should be where I have to do the exam in my home where I have no control over the noise around my apartment or find some public place to do it, and all the work I need to do setting up my computer for this ... and the disability services basically said "nice try" and gave me some canned bureaucratic "please fuck off" response. the last exam I did I booked a study room at the library and took out one of the laptops the library loans and the webcam was not working and I missed the first 35 minutes of the hour time limit trying to figure it out. I contacted my professor and the exam support (thankfully at least this is ONE case one of these online platforms allows access to a human support person) and they started the hour from the time I got into the exam, but it was so stressful. the next day my professor emailed me to get the details because they wanted to make a complaint about the library for it and I'm like ... these librarians are the ONLY things keeping me from totally losing my mind and just being a human presence talking to me and helping me out in the faceless void digitally automated hellscape...

i had kind of been safe for a while with my ancient macbook that just couldn't access certain websites and apps, that was slowly having more and more apps and websites just refuse to support my OS anymore ... now that i can access them I have to say this is much worse.

[mephitsguidetothemultiverse]

Catalogue No.: Epsilon-122274893(b), Media Type: Digital Notes (short format), Title: "Mephit's Notes - Getting Started"

Welcome back and congratulations on passing selection. I'm sure you have many questions about what you have seen but I must confess I have no idea what it was. I simply opened several remote multiversal viewing windows across space time and then sent everyone who watched the video their nearest one with an automated system. No idea what was on the other side, although I am certain many of you will need to be sent tips for how to cope with a new trauma. Don't worry, the first one is always the hardest and it does get easier.

That all being said, I can answer some much more pressing questions about what to do next. For now it is easy enough as you cannot yet travel on your own but merely observe. This will be a relief to some and a disappointment to others, but I assure you all it is simply a necessary step while we build up your knowledge tolerance and understanding of the multiverse. Soon enough you'll be reading an article all about your new favorite way to get from one universe to another and building it yourself, you have my word. For now, I will be sending you information periodically throughout your week to review at your convenience. The following is a list of the important points you will need to know to get started. First: You will start with information from only one new universe (one can assume you know a fair bit about your own universe and also that you are not ready to have that information majorly shifted without consequences). For UNIVERSE 619-GAMMA-KRO-2, this is UNIVERSE 78735-ZALA,aka the PRIME LEYPATH TRAVEL UNIVERSE. The text looks funny because you're seeing it updated for you in your local space time. I honestly have no idea what it says, I can't see any of you yet because I'm using automation while I establish proper connections. Don't worry about this, it's fine.

Second: You will receive at least two articles at a time, and yes, this includes my own interjections in various formats, always with a reference number for your convenience when you finally reach the library. Upon receiving these articles you are to read them and process them in your own time.

Third: Make notes of your observations and inferences and even how this information might connect with other articles. You should find a device on your personal desk or workspace that looks like a flat panel soon after reading this. When you have completed notes for your sleep/wake cycle, and you will be taking notes every sleep/wake cycle until your training is complete, place them on this device in a neat pile and do not touch again. I will receive the notes in your sleep and adjust training as needed.

Last: You will repeat this process and await further instructions as to how to expand the scope of your training.

And that's all there is to it for now! Your first new articles will be dropping a little later on in your current sleep/wake cycle. Have fun with it, your life will never be the same anyways and if it is it will be because your memory will be erased in a manner that leaves you feeling incomplete for the rest of your life because you had to be dropped from the program. That won't happen to you though, no you passed selection! That must mean you are far too smart and capable to do something so silly as tell anyone. Remember, this is a closed training program and details are not to be discussed outside it. Besides, until you can get to the library it's not like you can screw up much at all unless you do start blabbing. So relax! Have fun! You made it!

That should be more than enough to get you started. I will reach out again soon if you find yourself missing my presence, but for now this is Mephit signing off. Happy researching!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This day in history

Tomorrow (November 16) I'll be in Stratford, Ontario, appearing onstage with Vass Bednar as part of the CBC IDEAS Festival. I'm also doing an afternoon session for middle-schoolers at the Stratford Public Library.

#20yrsago Owner Override: a proposal to fix Trusted Computing https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7055

#10yrsago Rob Ford stripped of powers https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/city-hall/rob-ford-councillors-strip-mayor-of-certain-powers/article_c531a981-ab9a-5818-abef-83dc0ba6cf89.html

#5yrsago Gilded Age watch: America’s firefighting is turning into a two-tier system, with private services for the 1% https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-history-private-firefighting/575887/

#5yrsago One year later: kids smart-watches are still a privacy and security dumpster fire https://www.pentestpartners.com/security-blog/consumer-advice-kids-gps-tracker-watch-security/

#5yrsago Mark Zuckerberg to the governments of Canada, UK, Australia, Ireland and Argentina: “Go fuck yourselves” https://www.cnet.com/news/politics/mark-zuckerberg-not-able-to-attend-disinformation-hearing-despite-growing-call/

#5yrsago Companies keep losing your data because it doesn’t cost them anything https://www.vice.com/en/article/bje8na/massive-data-leaks-keep-happening-because-big-companies-can-afford-to-lose-your-data

#5yrsago If you’re an American of European descent, your stupid cousins have probably put you in vast commercial genomic databases https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau4832

#5yrsago Competitive book-sorting event pits New York library workers against Washington State’s https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/competitive-library-book-sorting

#5yrsago The EU can #fixcopyright, but they’re not https://dontwreckthe.net

#5yrsago Here’s the secret details of 200 cities’ license-plate tracking programs https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/11/eff-and-muckrock-release-records-and-data-200-law-enforcement-agencies-automated

#5yrsago Generative adversarial network produces a “universal fingerprint” that will unlock many smartphones https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.07386

#1yrago Tracers in the Dark: Andy Greenberg's gripping true crime tale of cryptocurrency forensics https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/15/public-immutable-crimes/#andy-greenberg