Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

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

1 6 14

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 17h

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 · 20h

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.

1 1 5

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 22h

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

Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

Keith Ng @keithng.bsky.social · 23h

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.

1 1 10

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

bsky.app/profile/noco...

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 9d

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 · 1d

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

1 12 28

Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 1d

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

1 11 38

Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 1d

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

3 33 69

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.

2 2

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

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

1 3

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 · 2d

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

1 2 8

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

6 74 230

Scott Common 𓅃 @nocommonswan.bsky.social · 4d

I misread that as "anarchist" and I was still nodding along at the end.

1 3

Reposted by Scott Common 𓅃

Morgan Davie @fromthemorgue.bsky.social · 5d

I know it’s a kiwi made out of hardware but my eye sees a xenomorph tail with a buzzsaw attachment

1 7 26

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

To this day I have no idea how folks in US became aware of the EP - but it blew my mind that I was getting radio play in the US! I am aware that I was probably riding a bit of a wave of fascination about NZ music from the US (the Noisyland tours in 93 had really raised some interest).

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

The EP itself was very informed by a bundle of influences. The choice of production (DIY) was 90% because of my love of Flying Nun. The tracks reflected some direct influences at the time like Garageland, Folk Implosion, 60s surf-rock, Blur, and The Clean.

1 1

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

I worked the recording like a job - 8 hour day with a 1 hour lunch break. Rented a room from my mum to use for the recording during the day. I'd also rented a bundle of gear to support the recording (mixing desk, bass guitar, extra microphones).

1 1

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

Some copies did go into local record stores - but getting unknown, unsigned local releases onto shelves was pretty difficult in those days.

I didn't make much on each unit - about $5 I think. In the end the process mostly paid for itself though.

1 1

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

It was released through a new digital platform at the time, MP3.com. Around 250 copies (on CD) were sold. To my surprise mostly to people in the US! I had a little radio play on Radio One in Dunedin - but also had some play on the US college radio circuit.

1 1