NotPrinceHamlet
@anattendantlord.bsky.social
Ambivalent academic. Occasionally swelling a progress, starting a train or two. Not keen on peaches these days.
Reposted by NotPrinceHamlet
A little ASMR from my walk in the woods this morning. Minus 26°C and beautifully calm and sunny.
December 7, 2025 at 5:12 PM
A little ASMR from my walk in the woods this morning. Minus 26°C and beautifully calm and sunny.
It's in the handle
Which lines of poetry live rent-free in your head?
December 6, 2025 at 11:17 PM
It's in the handle
Reposted by NotPrinceHamlet
And, importantly, if the text is wrong the LLM will be wrong. the mostly baffling aspect of the whole AI craze for me has been this insistence that within extant natural text (and mostly text available online, not all that’s ever been written) contains all of human knowledge, experience, and truth
December 6, 2025 at 9:27 AM
And, importantly, if the text is wrong the LLM will be wrong. the mostly baffling aspect of the whole AI craze for me has been this insistence that within extant natural text (and mostly text available online, not all that’s ever been written) contains all of human knowledge, experience, and truth
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Theres this crazy thing about being an immigrant where something is so, so, so hard and then somehow you get folded into the state system and you now are treated like a native and suddenly it just works and you’re like oh my god, everyone else had this the whole time
December 5, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Theres this crazy thing about being an immigrant where something is so, so, so hard and then somehow you get folded into the state system and you now are treated like a native and suddenly it just works and you’re like oh my god, everyone else had this the whole time
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People François Legault’s government hates:
Muslims. Teachers. Doctors. English-speakers. Unions. Immigrants. Women. Muslims (they hate them a lot; it bears repeating). Bus-drivers.
Have I forgotten anyone?
Muslims. Teachers. Doctors. English-speakers. Unions. Immigrants. Women. Muslims (they hate them a lot; it bears repeating). Bus-drivers.
Have I forgotten anyone?
December 5, 2025 at 8:53 PM
People François Legault’s government hates:
Muslims. Teachers. Doctors. English-speakers. Unions. Immigrants. Women. Muslims (they hate them a lot; it bears repeating). Bus-drivers.
Have I forgotten anyone?
Muslims. Teachers. Doctors. English-speakers. Unions. Immigrants. Women. Muslims (they hate them a lot; it bears repeating). Bus-drivers.
Have I forgotten anyone?
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The essence of Blue Labour thought is that somewhere in Downing Street there is a button marked “reindustrialise” that Tony Blair could have pressed, but instead he opted for the “more Woke Studies” button.
My brother in Christ, reindustrialization is based on international capital flows, not dumbass ideas to move down the value chain by turning colleges into vocational schools. You do realize that modern industry is almost always *high* skilled automation?
Read your Michael Pettis, you utter clown.
Read your Michael Pettis, you utter clown.
No reindustrialising? Our academic institutions are a part of the problem, overproducing elites and funnelling them into bullshit unproductive jobs. Half the universities need to close or become vocational colleges. You didn't even mention productivity.
Brexit is in the past. That ship has sailed.
Brexit is in the past. That ship has sailed.
December 5, 2025 at 8:58 PM
The essence of Blue Labour thought is that somewhere in Downing Street there is a button marked “reindustrialise” that Tony Blair could have pressed, but instead he opted for the “more Woke Studies” button.
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being in omnishambles
UK federal politics 🤝 Quebec provincial politics
UK federal politics 🤝 Quebec provincial politics
All parties here are in shambles. PQ is winning by default.
December 5, 2025 at 1:43 AM
being in omnishambles
UK federal politics 🤝 Quebec provincial politics
UK federal politics 🤝 Quebec provincial politics
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This ongoing toxic discourse has multiple real-life, everyday consequences
It leads to the man sitting next to me on a bus not accepting I'm from Manchester as I have 'dark skin'
Declaring, while gesturing around the bus- 'you can fool all of them, but you can't fool me'
It permits open racism
It leads to the man sitting next to me on a bus not accepting I'm from Manchester as I have 'dark skin'
Declaring, while gesturing around the bus- 'you can fool all of them, but you can't fool me'
It permits open racism
GB News now broadcasting calls to remove the ethnic minority MPs from parliament
December 4, 2025 at 7:51 AM
This ongoing toxic discourse has multiple real-life, everyday consequences
It leads to the man sitting next to me on a bus not accepting I'm from Manchester as I have 'dark skin'
Declaring, while gesturing around the bus- 'you can fool all of them, but you can't fool me'
It permits open racism
It leads to the man sitting next to me on a bus not accepting I'm from Manchester as I have 'dark skin'
Declaring, while gesturing around the bus- 'you can fool all of them, but you can't fool me'
It permits open racism
Reposted by NotPrinceHamlet
obviously, i had to be on a flight with no wifi for the first root ton in oz. extreme buggeration. still very happy about it though.
December 4, 2025 at 12:52 PM
obviously, i had to be on a flight with no wifi for the first root ton in oz. extreme buggeration. still very happy about it though.
They should probably be more widely read because this quote is from Guards! Guards!, not Night Watch. (Which one can even distinguish from the fact that this is clearly Vetinari before he was retconned into being Bruce Wayne)
Rereading the Watch books from Discworld and remembering why they should be even more widely read…
December 3, 2025 at 7:17 PM
They should probably be more widely read because this quote is from Guards! Guards!, not Night Watch. (Which one can even distinguish from the fact that this is clearly Vetinari before he was retconned into being Bruce Wayne)
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Obviously this is impossible because Alan Moore looks like he's genetically a wizard, it's simply impossible to imagine what he would look like as a schoolboy oh there he is.
Spot Alan Moore in his 6th form Northampton Grammar School photo, taken two days before he was expelled
December 2, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Obviously this is impossible because Alan Moore looks like he's genetically a wizard, it's simply impossible to imagine what he would look like as a schoolboy oh there he is.
Just seen the acronym FAOC and this sounds like an attempt to phonetically render Matt Berry doing his Steven Toast voice
December 1, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Just seen the acronym FAOC and this sounds like an attempt to phonetically render Matt Berry doing his Steven Toast voice
apropos of nothing in particular except a head that feels like it is filled with blancmange: it just struck me that a preprint with the title "Generalized AF C*-algebras" probably reads differently to a non-mathematical reader than to me
December 1, 2025 at 2:06 PM
apropos of nothing in particular except a head that feels like it is filled with blancmange: it just struck me that a preprint with the title "Generalized AF C*-algebras" probably reads differently to a non-mathematical reader than to me
This has made my morning
I just stared at him so he said it again more slowly. Then I said “non, je suis Anglaise” and then he said in English “oh I thought maybe you were German” and I’m like, MATE, I KNOW THE WORDS FOR HANDICAPPED AND GERMAN. Then he started trying to flirt with me, because French dude gonna French dude.
December 1, 2025 at 12:06 PM
This has made my morning
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it pisses me off SO MUCH that pattern recognition in images or multivariate correlation characterization or whatnot is now lumped in with the most useless thing ever, statistical text generation, and not only lumped in but apparently Sam's stupid text model is the standard bearer for all tech now
November 30, 2025 at 1:30 PM
it pisses me off SO MUCH that pattern recognition in images or multivariate correlation characterization or whatnot is now lumped in with the most useless thing ever, statistical text generation, and not only lumped in but apparently Sam's stupid text model is the standard bearer for all tech now
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I have literally no idea why or what is the context here, but it seems to be a mangling of the lyrics of TRB's Glad to be Gay
November 30, 2025 at 11:16 AM
I have literally no idea why or what is the context here, but it seems to be a mangling of the lyrics of TRB's Glad to be Gay
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A new episode of World of Telly is out now. This week we take a look at the political sitcom Whoops Apocalypse, which aired on ITV in 1982. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. A video version of this episode will be out next week.
November 28, 2025 at 6:21 PM
A new episode of World of Telly is out now. This week we take a look at the political sitcom Whoops Apocalypse, which aired on ITV in 1982. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. A video version of this episode will be out next week.
Reposted by NotPrinceHamlet
Ran a haul of documents through AI (Microsoft Co-Pilot) asking it to pick up (via OCR) important or interesting quotes. As you might suspect by now - though I gave it a go in good faith - it’s just inventing them based on what it thinks I want. Good thing it’s a low stakes topic like the road to WW2
November 28, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Ran a haul of documents through AI (Microsoft Co-Pilot) asking it to pick up (via OCR) important or interesting quotes. As you might suspect by now - though I gave it a go in good faith - it’s just inventing them based on what it thinks I want. Good thing it’s a low stakes topic like the road to WW2
Reposted by NotPrinceHamlet
Lot of pressure from faculty for "successful" departments like ours to take incrementally more home UGs to cross-subsidise other depts.
Also if taught PGT doesn't hit numbers, there's pressure to be "as flexible as possible" on admissions standards
Also if taught PGT doesn't hit numbers, there's pressure to be "as flexible as possible" on admissions standards
November 28, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Lot of pressure from faculty for "successful" departments like ours to take incrementally more home UGs to cross-subsidise other depts.
Also if taught PGT doesn't hit numbers, there's pressure to be "as flexible as possible" on admissions standards
Also if taught PGT doesn't hit numbers, there's pressure to be "as flexible as possible" on admissions standards
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The removal of individual institutions’ student number caps was a disaster.
'Bols and Maguire trace the current financial problems higher education institutions are facing back to the government’s decision to remove the limit on student numbers in 2015-16 and deregulate student recruitment, while maintaining caps on tuition fees, thus limiting universities’ income.' 2/3
November 28, 2025 at 8:59 AM
The removal of individual institutions’ student number caps was a disaster.
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Reminder that "I published in Nature Scientific Reports" is basically the same claim as "I bought some advertising space on a shelf that has the Nature logo glued to one end of it."
"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se
November 27, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reminder that "I published in Nature Scientific Reports" is basically the same claim as "I bought some advertising space on a shelf that has the Nature logo glued to one end of it."
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No one who uses AI seems to treat an output as a draft, let alone even bothers to proofread.
I just saw a discussion where someone submitted 13k lines of code on GitHub, an the devs had to explain that the real cost of doing that is the time they have to spend going through everything.
I just saw a discussion where someone submitted 13k lines of code on GitHub, an the devs had to explain that the real cost of doing that is the time they have to spend going through everything.
November 25, 2025 at 11:56 AM
No one who uses AI seems to treat an output as a draft, let alone even bothers to proofread.
I just saw a discussion where someone submitted 13k lines of code on GitHub, an the devs had to explain that the real cost of doing that is the time they have to spend going through everything.
I just saw a discussion where someone submitted 13k lines of code on GitHub, an the devs had to explain that the real cost of doing that is the time they have to spend going through everything.
Reposted by NotPrinceHamlet
I directed the episode of MURDOCH MYSTERIES set in 1910 where they invented the internet AND the concept of the nude selfie.
best we've got right now is Murdoch Mysteries, a detective show set in late 1800's Toronto, where the lead characters regularly invent modern technology by accident. Detective Murdoch created the Roomba. Tatiana Maslany's brother plays a gay jewish cop. It's incredible.
November 26, 2025 at 9:51 PM
I directed the episode of MURDOCH MYSTERIES set in 1910 where they invented the internet AND the concept of the nude selfie.
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I think this is an underrated source of the extent to which Bluesky is in a false consensus about public AI hatred. If you are a power user on a microblogging site you are basically by definition not going to see the "take the effort out of reading and writing" machine as being useful
I think more than anything else AI feels like a miracle to people with questionable literacy because it can read and write for you, and a lot of us who are highly literate underestimate how many of our society's leaders, esp in business, struggle with literacy.
It's pretty much mandatory at work that I appear to be using it, so I've doe a few functional things with it, and it's a moderate time-saver if used right. But nowhere near worth it's stock value, energy cost.
Then I realize there's a lot of people who simply can't write coherent paragraphs.
Then I realize there's a lot of people who simply can't write coherent paragraphs.
November 26, 2025 at 7:25 PM
I think this is an underrated source of the extent to which Bluesky is in a false consensus about public AI hatred. If you are a power user on a microblogging site you are basically by definition not going to see the "take the effort out of reading and writing" machine as being useful