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Scott Common 𓅃

@nocommonswan.bsky.social

300 followers 170 following 1.4K posts

Media & Coms Tutor, musician, ex-consultant, ex-gardening contractor, player of games, glass painter. Para-Luddite & Professional Amateur.𓅃 https://thek1500project.bandcamp.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@K1500Project https://dolphinnoir.bandcamp.com/

thek1500project.bandcamp.com

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · Nov 24

Hello new followers (nods at 𓅃). Here's a video to explain me - an 8 minute song of one riff with text to speech vocal arguing poetically the space industry is undercutting discourses of climate action. The video is made from a 1950s Frigidaire commercial and 60s NASA PR footage.

The Moon Is A Device For Giving Up

YouTube video by K1500Project

www.youtube.com

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 54m

I'm 100% "Ball of tangled-up bundles of energy called atomic strings".

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1h

There's one left. Some people don't fuck around. They know what they want; it's brash and abrasive and steeped in their local history.

A giant seagull made of plastic. Its gaping maw dwarfing the flaxes and undergrowth around it.

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1h

Do I need to say that people love cats? No.

People love cats.

A small cat statue sitting on some bricks looking upwards.

A black cat outline (with yellow eyes) sitting in an empty terracotta pot.

A statue of a cat licking it's paw. Sitting in some grasses and other plants.

The weirdest fucking looking cat you have ever seen. This shit is CREEPY. It is looking up and grinning like some terrifying weirdo. Sitting in a floor of mulched leaves.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1h

Then there's the people who go a little abstract, and I love those crazy folks. The gardens are always interesting and a little wild.

So the broken head in the cart is great. They also had a full sized terracotta warrior with honeysuckle all over it, no photo unfortunately.

Two broken statues sitting in an old wooden cart. One is a classic sculpture head the other is... something.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1h

We did some work for my mum, and while her tastes are a little more "traditional" she has some lovely gargoyles tucked away in places. Plus a wizard of course.

A small gargoyle statue on a pedestal tucked between some buxus hedges. It is leaning forward with it's chin on its hands.

A small gargoyle statue sitting on some bricks, tucked into a fuchsia hedge. It is looking upwards with interest.

A small stature of a wizard reading a book sitting a brick ledge with plants in the background.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1h

Some are a little more... specific in their interests. These guys had been there for quite a while when we did a rescue on the property and cleared them some space.

A number of pale grey Star Wars characters on levels of a grassy step. Small white flowers and longer grasses surround.

Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper as figurines on a grassy step. Pale grey colour.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1h

I spent a couple of years working as a gardening contractor a while ago. Good work, nice people (generally). I was also always interested in the non-plant ornaments people chose for their gardens. So, some favourites.

Starting with the iron goat. Made from roofing iron.

A sculpture of a goat, made out of roofing iron facing towards the camera. The iron is somewhat rusted on the goats coat giving it colour. A hedge row and planter box are in the back ground.

A sculpture of a goat, made out of roofing iron photographed from a downward angle. The iron is somewhat rusted on the goats coat giving it colour. A hedge row and planter box are in the back ground.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 23h

No matter the technicalities of if they can pull it off it's an interesting move. If they succeed it clears some regulatory air and positions the BSA front and center in any later reform. If they fail they demonstrate how woefully lacking the current system actually is making it a political issue.

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1d

I do love how my glass paintings bleed into the rooms they're in when the light is right.

A square, large, glass painting of Aotearoa New Zealand sitting on a window sill. Some of the colours are projecting onto the window sill. A bottle of cheap merlot is next to it all.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1d

I hate it when sci-fi writers are "right".

Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

Keith Ng @keithng.bsky.social · 1d

But the latest iteration of slop-based AI apocalypses are much more akin to grey-goo apocalypses - a class of apocalypses where we're not even special enough to be Judged. We're just kinda just trampled accidentally by cockroaches.

Anyway, I miss the optimism of AI God, is what I'm saying.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1d

bsky.app/profile/noco...

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 10d

We don't read modern sci-fi to learn about the future right? We read sci-fi from the past to learn about right now.

(Also whatever happens to musicians blah blah...)

Mr. Judy turned the dial down. “This guy’s a customer of ours; he’s talking on one of our 900 lines, and he’s paying a buck per minute on his credit card.”

Vanna examined another console. “It’s a VISA card. On a savings-and-loan from Colorado. Equifax checkout says it’s good.”

“You’re running phone pornography?” Wolverine said, appalled.

“Of course not,” Mr. Judy said. “You can’t really call it ‘pornography’ if there’s no oppression-of-women involved. Our 900 service is entirely cruelty- and exploitation-free!”

Wolverine was skeptical. “What about that woman who’s talking on the phone, though? You can’t tell me she’s not being exploited.”

“That’s the amazing beauty of it!” Mr. Judy declared. “There’s no real woman there at all! That voice is just a kind of Artificial Intelligence thing! It’s not ‘talking’ at all, really it’s just generating speech, using Marilyn Monroe’s voice mixed with Karen Carpenter’s. It’s all just digital, like on a CD.”

“What?” said Wolverine. “I don’t understand.”

Mr. Judy patted her console; the top was out of it, revealing a miniature urban high-rise of accelerator cards and plug-in modules. “This computer’s got a voice-recognition card. The software just picks words at random out of the customer’s own sick, pathetic rant! Whenever he stops for breath, it feeds a question back to him, using his own vocabulary. I mean, if he talks about shaved hamsters—or whatever his kink is—then it talks about shaved hamsters. The system knows how to construct sentences in English, but it doesn’t have to understand a single thing he says! All it does is claim to understand him.”

“Every two or three minutes it stops and says really nice things to him off the hard disk,” Vanna said helpfully. “Kind of a flattery subroutine.”

“And he doesn’t realize that?”

“Nobody’s ever complained so far,” Vanna said. “We get men calling in steady, week after week!”

“When it comes to men and sex, being human has never been part of the transaction,” Mr. Judy said.…

Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 2d

there are a ton of changes in here but a huge one appears to be taking the Marsden fund, our main supporter of basic science, away from the Royal Society and handing it to a govt agency "Research Funding New Zealand" which does not yet exist

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Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 2d

this is just the latest weakening in a series of successive weakenings of NZ science — the country of Ernest Rutherford is cutting its universities off at the knees, speeding along the departure of its top minds to brighter shores

#nzpol

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Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 2d

NZ's govt has announced reforms to science funding

just one line about basic science in there: "Discovery-led science & research will continue to be funded. This will sit outside the pillars & is essential for maintaining vibrant curiosity-driven science system"

yea mate seems like a real priority

A new strategy for the science system | Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment

The Government is changing how science, innovation and technology are funded and supported in New Zealand. The goal is a simpler and more strategic system that helps researchers turn ideas into solutions that benefit New Zealand.

www.mbie.govt.nz

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 1d

@buzzandhum.bsky.social JPSE live @ the Power Station 9th December 1989 - pre Size of Food release. Proto version of Angel, live version of the B-side Shimmer, unreleased tracks (Everything's Green and Black Flag Killer).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9S...

Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - Live at the Powerstation, Auckland, 9th December 1989

YouTube video by Ephemera problematica

www.youtube.com

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 2d

Not sure what version of fifty-two years an imbecile I am but I'll get there next year.

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 2d

You can't expect puny human hands to bend hard things like they do in the futur(ama).

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 2d

I'm just unsure what grade of imbecile.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 2d

Checking in early for the fifty-two years an imbecile.

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Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 2d

I feel like I need to pull out this image for some reason.

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 2d

This was a great video!

We tried to do infrasonic measurements in a local tunnel as part of a submission on a council proposal in the 90s. Never could get the tech working back then. Rest of the study was sound. Council ignored it of course.

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 3d

Oh wow, that's a great combo! Enjoy!

Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 5d

On this day, 25 years ago, I quit my job. I'd saved enough money for rent & food and my plan was to go and record an EP. Which I did.

The output was this EP, 5 tracks, recorded and produced on a Tascam Porta-07 4-Track, and I'm still pretty proud of it.

thek1500project.bandcamp.com/album/ep

EP, by The K1500 Project

5 track album

thek1500project.bandcamp.com

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Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · Aug 18

It is not "attribution and sourcing" to generate post-hoc citations that have not been read and did not inform the student's writing. Those should be regarded as fraudulent: artifacts testifying to human actions and thought that did not occur.
www.theverge.com/news/760508/...

For help with attribution and sourcing, Grammarly is releasing a citation finder agent that automatically generates correctly formatted citations backing up claims in a piece of writing, and an expert review agent that provides personalized, topic-specific feedback.

Screenshot from Grammarly's demo of inserting a post-hoc citation.
https://www.grammarly.com/ai-agents/citation-finder

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