I've just watched Ben Elton's Upstart, Crow for the first time.
A friend tipped me off - had no idea that existed, even though it's been around 5 years.
I was crying tears of laughter in episode one. Brilliant.
You haven't? Unashamedly intellectual. There's a superb one from lockdown. Loads of mask wearing, social distancing and toilet roll (moist moss) hoarding jokes. The more you know about WS's plays the funnier and cleverer it is. So I'm told.
Of course when we were in the EU there were plenty of people ready to blame that for everything that went wrong so I'm not going to shed too many tears about Brexit getting the blame for stuff that's not related to it.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Worst thing about Christmas is all the sweets and sickly garbage that comes into the house. They don’t go with wine. Absolutely useless. Packets of cashew nuts would make far better gifts.
Or more wine, as long as the gifters know what they are buying. The bottom shelf at Morrisons is not a recommendation, if anyone is thinking of bringing a bottle chez Fairliered.
Worst thing about Christmas is all the sweets and sickly garbage that comes into the house. They don’t go with wine. Absolutely useless. Packets of cashew nuts would make far better gifts.
Or more wine, as long as the gifters know what they are buying. The bottom shelf at Morrisons is not a recommendation, if anyone is thinking of bringing a bottle chez Fairliered.
When I was a kid, we used to distil the junk wine into pure alcohol for chemistry experiments. In the kitchen….
We had all the lab glassware - a Liebig condenser is a thing of beauty.
Additonally (and sadly not finally), with regard to our future AI overlords, you need to look at AI safety and the "alignment issue" between what we want from a Meta perspective and what the AI will make from it from a Mesa perspective - https://www.youtube.com/@RobertMilesAI/videos
To use a nice analogy, your meta instructions as humans is to reproduce as thats the DNA instructions. However how you interpret it is 100% off track as mesa (meta is outward, mesa inward) - likely to make money or do this or that - not a problem for a lifeform like us - big issue for an AI under different rules.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Worst thing about Christmas is all the sweets and sickly garbage that comes into the house. They don’t go with wine. Absolutely useless. Packets of cashew nuts would make far better gifts.
Or more wine, as long as the gifters know what they are buying. The bottom shelf at Morrisons is not a recommendation, if anyone is thinking of bringing a bottle chez Fairliered.
When I was a kid, we used to distil the junk wine into pure alcohol for chemistry experiments. In the kitchen….
We had all the lab glassware - a Liebig condenser is a thing of beauty.
I will look out for Malmesbury Gin at the local artisan off-licence.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
I will say it appears he really did open himself up honestly to his ghostwriter on a lot of small details, as some of these personal details and/or gripes either don't paint him in a positive light, or are just bizarre inclusions even if you were putting out an extremely detailed memoir. Like if bios felt the need to tell us what Churchill had for breakfast each morning or something.
Additonally (and sadly not finally), with regard to our future AI overlords, you need to look at AI safety and the "alignment issue" between what we want from a Meta perspective and what the AI will make from it from a Mesa perspective - https://www.youtube.com/@RobertMilesAI/videos
To use a nice analogy, your meta instructions as humans is to reproduce as thats the DNA instructions. However how you interpret it is 100% off track as mesa (meta is outward, mesa inward) - likely to make money or do this or that - not a problem for a lifeform like us - big issue for an AI under different rules.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Like Golf, skiing is not a posh sport in Scotland, although to balance things out, cricket is a minority sport in Scotland, due to rain regularly stopping play.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
"Asked why he robbed banks for a living, the legendary American bank robber Willie Sutton allegedly replied, ‘because that’s where the money is’. Not any more, it isn’t.
In Denmark, where only twenty of the country’s 740 bank branches still hold cash in their vaults, 2022 was the first year without a bank robbery. There had been 222 as recently as 2002. Sutton, who said he robbed banks because ‘I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life’, would weep.
Why have Danish bank robbers hung up their swag bags? The reason is Denmark’s rapid transition towards a cashless society, expedited by the pandemic. In the four years to 2021, the proportion of cash used for purchases nearly halved, from 23 percent to 12 percent. Only Sweden and Norway use less cash than Denmark.
Fortunately, there are still plenty of ATMs in Denmark. And if one happens to have cash, it can still be used nearly everywhere. Unlike the UK, where retailers are entitled to refuse cash payments, staffed retail stores in Denmark are obliged to accept cash." (£)
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Though the average skiing holiday now costs £4688 for a family of 4. 17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Though the average skiing holiday now costs £4688 for a family of 4. 17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
a) If there is snow it is difficult to get to b) It is cold c) The runs are rubbish.
I'm mad.
One way ticket to Belford/Raigmore/ARI. Watch out for the mud.
I've hit rocks, gravel and grass and even gone through a large puddle, but never mud. Sounds like you would shoot out of your bindings and land face down in it.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Though the average skiing holiday now costs £4688 for a family of 4. 17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
So just to give you an idea about how daft that article (written by someone who spends that on a holiday) is you can get a Ryanair flight to Austria, and a train direct to a resort can be got for 10 or 20 euros. Youngsters rough it very cheaply. Resorts are full of them. If you can go more upmarket and get an all in Mark Warner holiday you will be quoted more than the price in that article, but only an idiot pays the quoted price. Huge discounts can be got booking late. School holidays are an issue, so I took mine Summer sking on a glacier. Dead cheap.
Only if you have money to burn need it cost a lot.
I can't believe the publishers allowed that to be included.
I mean maybe it doesn't matter if Prince Harry, the Royal Family and the British people are terrorist targets but you wouldn't have thought it's a position Random House would want to find themselves in would you?
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Though the average skiing holiday now costs £4688 for a family of 4. 17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
A 6-year-old boy is in police custody after he shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, Friday afternoon, Police Chief Steve Drew said in a news conference.
Drew said the female teacher – who is in her 30s – was shot inside a classroom and added that “this was not an accidental shooting.”
The police chief said there was an altercation between the teacher and the student, who had the firearm, and that a single round was fired.
"Microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, Professor David Livermore, and Journalist Nina Myskow clash over whether we should reintroduce certain Covid restrictions to save the NHS."
I can't believe the publishers allowed that to be included.
I mean maybe it doesn't matter if Prince Harry, the Royal Family and the British people are terrorist targets but you wouldn't have thought it's a position Random House would want to find themselves in would you?
Perhaps Harry thinks the Taliban claim will force us to pay for his 24x7 security.
I can't believe the publishers allowed that to be included.
I mean maybe it doesn't matter if Prince Harry, the Royal Family and the British people are terrorist targets but you wouldn't have thought it's a position Random House would want to find themselves in would you?
Perhaps Harry thinks the Taliban claim will force us to pay for his 24x7 security.
Am I the only one not surprised that Army active service as an Apache pilot/weapons officer involves killing people? Or that military training deliberately desensitises people to the task?
Motion to adjourn was on verge of passage, with clear majority despite 4 nay votes for GOPers.
However, in last few minutes, Republicans have been switching to Nay in droves, now 37 voting with the Democrats to say in session . . . and number keeps rising.
Less than half hour left to Friday in Washington DC.
Addendum - will be interesting to find out, who made the move among GOPers to stay in session? Then once it was obvious motion to adjourn would fail, bunch of others got on the bandwagon.
Most likely to look good - or at least a wee bit better - back home. Where folks are NOT in sympathetic to House members need for a restful weekend!
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, holds her smart phone with former US President Donald Trump on the line, as Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican from Montana, waves it off during a meeting of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber on Friday.
Kevin McCarthy = 216 = elected Hakeem Jeffries = 212 Present = 6 all Republicans votes cast = 428
"Therefore, the Honorable Kevin McCarthy of the State of California, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives."
Nancy Pelosi named as part of the bipartisan group designated to escort the new Speaker to take the Chair. Along with the entire California delegation.
This is a tradition established I believe before the Civil War.
Kevin McCarthy is the 55th member of the US House of Representatives to be elected Speaker.
I've just watched Ben Elton's Upstart, Crow for the first time.
A friend tipped me off - had no idea that existed, even though it's been around 5 years.
I was crying tears of laughter in episode one. Brilliant.
Ben Elton's uncle Sir Geoffrey Elton was a distinguished Tudor historian. I read his book "The Tudor Constitution" for History A level.
Geoffrey Elton was the quintessential English establishment historian. Which brought him much criticism in his later years from the avant-garde historians.
This is really amusing given his background, of course. Indeed, as he had a sense of humour he found it so himself. He wrote a charming letter to one critic, noting 'I am not English-born and not perhaps quite so insular as you suppose.'
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
Harry's launched a TV series and book trashing his family, while claiming he wants to reconcile. But any conversation could easily end up as chapter 2 in his second book.
On checking, Google Translate does NOT offer Coptic, Old Norse, Cornish, Saami, Tibetan, Rapa Nui, Geez, Hmong, Sumerian or Klingon so ChatGPT really is doing something impressive here. If the translations are accurate, of course
Your Sinhala phrase means "I'm a little tired" according to Google Translate. I could see if some of my Sinhalese relatives can offer an alternative translation. According to Google Translate your phrase should read මම පූසෙක් මම මීයන් කනවා, and from my limited knowledge of Sinhala I know that the word for cat is correct in that translation.
Indeed, it seems at least half of them are wrong - often entirely wrong, and a bit crazy - yet others are right (and not necessarily the easier ones)
Fascinating. It does show how this machine will churn out plausible bullshit, when in the mood, and to make it worse the bullshit is mixed with impressive accuracy. Dangerous!
I wonder how it chooses the phrases to invent?! That's intriguing by itself
Now now. ChatGPT was going to remove the need for doctors to deal with complex medical problems the other day. Now it is struggling to algorithmically translate some text from one language to another.
Not much of a problem if you mistakenly order dog's testicles in a foreign restaurant. More of a problem, I suspect, when seeking medical advice or diagnosis.
But I suppose a leading fiction writer knows best, despite having no understanding of medicine or AI, because he can 'imagine'.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
An interesting addition to the discussion on conatraint payments for wind and interconnectors to Europe. I remember discussing this with @DavidL the other week - he in favour of interconnectors to the continent, myself against.
A comment on John Redwood's blog says this - citing the Renewable Energy Foundation - I've asked for a link:
"That despite the increase in interconnector capacity, which has allowed much more export of surplus wind, often at low or even negative prices while being heavily subsidised by UK consumers. This is a major scandal, with subsidies of the full strike price of up to £187.47/MWh on CFDs and over £200/MWh for floating wind on ROCs for the benefit of other countries."
So interconnectors mean the UK consumer is not only subsidising the foreign owners of UK wind farms for providing power (and not providing power) to the UK, but for providing it at bargain bin prices to everyone else. The more you look at the system, the more putrid it reveals itself to be.
The intermittency of wind means that there will be some strange market behaviour at both extremes, when they're is lots of wind and when there isn't very much.
These sorts of price signals are useful information to the market to ensure that as much of the wind power generated is used or stored when it's available, and that we still have enough supply when there isn't much wind. If people abroad are being paid to use our wind energy across the interconnectors then that means there's a big price signal for people to invest in energy storage in Britain. The market will work it out. Transition periods can always be a bit messy.
I wouldn't get too hung up on what happens in isolation at these extremes. It's the aggregate effect that matters.
Correct, and a slightly lower price would have to be offset against the cost of batteries.
No it is not correct! Suppliers of wind energy still receive the full subsidy from the UK taxpayer (which we pay on our bill); there's no incentive whatsoever to avoid either constraining (which is richly subsidised) or providing the continent with cut price energy. I dread to even ask what 'negative prices' means - we pay them for using our energy?
Far from being incentivised in any way to store power or ensure that more of it reaches the grid, the current regime ensures that the owners of wind capacity are richly compensated for doing the opposite.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
I would imagine absolute obscurity will only be reached when the last PBer stops commenting on him and his psychodrama.
So that’s a no, then.
Which do we reckon will happen first:
1) Scott P abandoning rejoin 2) Stuart Dickson supporting the Union 3) Us stopping wittering on about Prince Harry 4) Vladimir Putin coming out as an agent of Ukrainian Intelligence 5) The DfE managing to say something intelligent and well-informed about education 6) The heat death of the universe.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
I would imagine absolute obscurity will only be reached when the last PBer stops commenting on him and his psychodrama.
So that’s a no, then.
Which do we reckon will happen first:
1) Scott P abandoning rejoin 2) Stuart Dickson supporting the Union 3) Us stopping wittering on about Prince Harry 4) Vladimir Putin coming out as an agent of Ukrainian Intelligence 5) The DfE managing to say something intelligent and well-informed about education 6) The heat death of the universe.
My money would be on 6...
You would lose your bet. The Earth will become uninhabitable in less that a billion years due to increased output from the Sun. The heat death of the universe will be some time further off if it ever happens.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
I would imagine absolute obscurity will only be reached when the last PBer stops commenting on him and his psychodrama.
So that’s a no, then.
Which do we reckon will happen first:
1) Scott P abandoning rejoin 2) Stuart Dickson supporting the Union 3) Us stopping wittering on about Prince Harry 4) Vladimir Putin coming out as an agent of Ukrainian Intelligence 5) The DfE managing to say something intelligent and well-informed about education 6) The heat death of the universe.
My money would be on 6...
You would lose your bet. The Earth will become uninhabitable in less that a billion years due to increased output from the Sun. The heat death of the universe will be some time further off if it ever happens.
But if none of the first five have happened by the time Earth is uninhabitable, surely the bet's a winner? The heat death of the universe will happen first.
Of course, collecting might be a problem but I'm sure we can get round that somehow.
An interesting addition to the discussion on conatraint payments for wind and interconnectors to Europe. I remember discussing this with @DavidL the other week - he in favour of interconnectors to the continent, myself against.
A comment on John Redwood's blog says this - citing the Renewable Energy Foundation - I've asked for a link:
"That despite the increase in interconnector capacity, which has allowed much more export of surplus wind, often at low or even negative prices while being heavily subsidised by UK consumers. This is a major scandal, with subsidies of the full strike price of up to £187.47/MWh on CFDs and over £200/MWh for floating wind on ROCs for the benefit of other countries."
So interconnectors mean the UK consumer is not only subsidising the foreign owners of UK wind farms for providing power (and not providing power) to the UK, but for providing it at bargain bin prices to everyone else. The more you look at the system, the more putrid it reveals itself to be.
The intermittency of wind means that there will be some strange market behaviour at both extremes, when they're is lots of wind and when there isn't very much.
These sorts of price signals are useful information to the market to ensure that as much of the wind power generated is used or stored when it's available, and that we still have enough supply when there isn't much wind. If people abroad are being paid to use our wind energy across the interconnectors then that means there's a big price signal for people to invest in energy storage in Britain. The market will work it out. Transition periods can always be a bit messy.
I wouldn't get too hung up on what happens in isolation at these extremes. It's the aggregate effect that matters.
Correct, and a slightly lower price would have to be offset against the cost of batteries.
No it is not correct! Suppliers of wind energy still receive the full subsidy from the UK taxpayer (which we pay on our bill); there's no incentive whatsoever to avoid either constraining (which is richly subsidised) or providing the continent with cut price energy. I dread to even ask what 'negative prices' means - we pay them for using our energy?
Far from being incentivised in any way to store power or ensure that more of it reaches the grid, the current regime ensures that the owners of wind capacity are richly compensated for doing the opposite.
The market is incentivised to provide storage. Pretty much anyone can do it. It doesn't have to be the same people who build the wind turbines.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
I would imagine absolute obscurity will only be reached when the last PBer stops commenting on him and his psychodrama.
So that’s a no, then.
Which do we reckon will happen first:
1) Scott P abandoning rejoin 2) Stuart Dickson supporting the Union 3) Us stopping wittering on about Prince Harry 4) Vladimir Putin coming out as an agent of Ukrainian Intelligence 5) The DfE managing to say something intelligent and well-informed about education 6) The heat death of the universe.
My money would be on 6...
You would lose your bet. The Earth will become uninhabitable in less that a billion years due to increased output from the Sun. The heat death of the universe will be some time further off if it ever happens.
OTOH it's not a bet Ydoerthur will ever have to pay up on.
On checking, Google Translate does NOT offer Coptic, Old Norse, Cornish, Saami, Tibetan, Rapa Nui, Geez, Hmong, Sumerian or Klingon so ChatGPT really is doing something impressive here. If the translations are accurate, of course
Your Sinhala phrase means "I'm a little tired" according to Google Translate. I could see if some of my Sinhalese relatives can offer an alternative translation. According to Google Translate your phrase should read මම පූසෙක් මම මීයන් කනවා, and from my limited knowledge of Sinhala I know that the word for cat is correct in that translation.
Indeed, it seems at least half of them are wrong - often entirely wrong, and a bit crazy - yet others are right (and not necessarily the easier ones)
Fascinating. It does show how this machine will churn out plausible bullshit, when in the mood, and to make it worse the bullshit is mixed with impressive accuracy. Dangerous!
I wonder how it chooses the phrases to invent?! That's intriguing by itself
Now now. ChatGPT was going to remove the need for doctors to deal with complex medical problems the other day. Now it is struggling to algorithmically translate some text from one language to another.
Not much of a problem if you mistakenly order dog's testicles in a foreign restaurant. More of a problem, I suspect, when seeking medical advice or diagnosis.
But I suppose a leading fiction writer knows best, despite having no understanding of medicine or AI, because he can 'imagine'.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
Is "extremely manipulative wife and ex wife" one person or two? Is he too royal to see the moral downside of shagging one person and marrying another, simultaneously?
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
a) If there is snow it is difficult to get to b) It is cold c) The runs are rubbish.
Bellend, luckily we do not get arseholes like you coming. Pity poor old Europe having the likes of you over there wanting egg and chips with your morning SUN.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
He is a pompous , snobby arsehole on the other hand so karma.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
The whole psychodrama could have been avoided if Charles had either been allowed to marry Camilla in the first place or found someone else that he actually loved and married her while not shagging Camilla at the same time. Pretending to love Diana, marrying her but carrying on with Camilla at the same time was an unforgivable act of caddishness on his part and he deserved everything he got from Diana and then some. People who cheat on their spouses get zero sympathy from me.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Though the average skiing holiday now costs £4688 for a family of 4. 17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
I have never ever paid anywhere near that amount. You need to stop reading articles written by people with more money than sense.
Skiing is incredibly expensive if you need to go during school holidays.
And quite reasonably priced if you don't.
So true, but there are ways around it (see previous posts and below) Worse of course are the bloody crowds on the slopes and at the lifts and of course lessons for the sprogs during school holidays.
What irritates me more is @HYUFD, as usual quoting from an article on the internet as if it is fact. Some page filler taken as gospel when he know f*** all about it. He probably hasn't ever put a pair of skis on ever whereas there will be quite a few on PB that have. I have skied twice a year every year from my 20s to my 60s, sometimes 3 times a year.
Ways around the school holiday issue are for instance going skiing at Whitsun on a glacier and organise it yourself. We taught our kids by doing that in Kaprun for several years. A RyanAir flight and cheap train, no crowds and perfect snow. Downside is the runs are limiting for a decent skier, but then I would go some other time to a good resort with friends for decent runs.
Relatively recently I went with friends who didn't want to pay much and we went to Zermatt. Now that is a proper resort and in Switzerland for goodness sake, but can be done on the cheap. Again organise yourself, cheap flight, cheap train direct to resort, apartment with living room that can be converted into a bedroom. Done during school holidays.
Outside of school holidays I used to go for apartments when I couldn't afford better and later chalets with a crowd when I could. I would never go back to apartments unless I had to. Sometimes if there were only 2 or 3 of us we would book Mark Warner (or equivalent) a few days before going at a fraction of the price (probably not possible during school holidays).
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
I would imagine absolute obscurity will only be reached when the last PBer stops commenting on him and his psychodrama.
So that’s a no, then.
Which do we reckon will happen first:
1) Scott P abandoning rejoin 2) Stuart Dickson supporting the Union 3) Us stopping wittering on about Prince Harry 4) Vladimir Putin coming out as an agent of Ukrainian Intelligence 5) The DfE managing to say something intelligent and well-informed about education 6) The heat death of the universe.
My money would be on 6...
You would lose your bet. The Earth will become uninhabitable in less that a billion years due to increased output from the Sun. The heat death of the universe will be some time further off if it ever happens.
Talking as you are of the Sun. When that event happens, what would be it's headline on such a seminal day? "Phew, what a scorcher".
That’s surprisingly precious of the Vicar of Bath, who purports to enjoy robust debates - typical bully then - can dish it out but can’t take it (though blocking does seem to be a feature of Scottish politics):
Apparently, the convener of the committee that considers equalities, human rights and civil justice matter including debt, evictions and family law would prefer not to know what I think. Rampant hubris on my part, of course, but I remain flabbergasted.….
In general, I support anyone’s right to block on Twitter. But @joefitzsnp is the convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities, Human Rights and *CIVIL JUSTICE* Committee. That being so, I find this news 👇🏻surprising and disappointing.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Though the average skiing holiday now costs £4688 for a family of 4. 17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
I have never ever paid anywhere near that amount. You need to stop reading articles written by people with more money than sense.
Skiing is incredibly expensive if you need to go during school holidays.
And quite reasonably priced if you don't.
So true, but there are ways around it (see previous posts and below) Worse of course are the bloody crowds on the slopes and at the lifts and of course lessons for the sprogs during school holidays.
What irritates me more is @HYUFD, as usual quoting from an article on the internet as if it is fact. Some page filler taken as gospel when he know f*** all about it. He probably hasn't ever put a pair of skis on ever whereas there will be quite a few on PB that have. I have skied twice a year every year from my 20s to my 60s, sometimes 3 times a year.
Ways around the school holiday issue are for instance going skiing at Whitsun on a glacier and organise it yourself. We taught our kids by doing that in Kaprun for several years. A RyanAir flight and cheap train, no crowds and perfect snow. Downside is the runs are limiting for a decent skier, but then I would go some other time to a good resort with friends for decent runs.
Relatively recently I went with friends who didn't want to pay much and we went to Zermatt. Now that is a proper resort and in Switzerland for goodness sake, but can be done on the cheap. Again organise yourself, cheap flight, cheap train direct to resort, apartment with living room that can be converted into a bedroom. Done during school holidays.
Outside of school holidays I used to go for apartments when I couldn't afford better and later chalets with a crowd when I could. I would never go back to apartments unless I had to. Sometimes if there were only 2 or 3 of us we would book Mark Warner (or equivalent) a few days before going at a fraction of the price (probably not possible during school holidays).
HYUFD is right though that, outside of bits of Scotland where you can do it locally (weather permitting) skiing in the UK is predominantly a sport pursued by well off posh people. There's nothing wrong with that, and there are of course exceptions, but anyone who has had enough exposure to different class/income groups over their lifetime will have spotted the correlation.
On checking, Google Translate does NOT offer Coptic, Old Norse, Cornish, Saami, Tibetan, Rapa Nui, Geez, Hmong, Sumerian or Klingon so ChatGPT really is doing something impressive here. If the translations are accurate, of course
Your Sinhala phrase means "I'm a little tired" according to Google Translate. I could see if some of my Sinhalese relatives can offer an alternative translation. According to Google Translate your phrase should read මම පූසෙක් මම මීයන් කනවා, and from my limited knowledge of Sinhala I know that the word for cat is correct in that translation.
Indeed, it seems at least half of them are wrong - often entirely wrong, and a bit crazy - yet others are right (and not necessarily the easier ones)
Fascinating. It does show how this machine will churn out plausible bullshit, when in the mood, and to make it worse the bullshit is mixed with impressive accuracy. Dangerous!
I wonder how it chooses the phrases to invent?! That's intriguing by itself
Now now. ChatGPT was going to remove the need for doctors to deal with complex medical problems the other day. Now it is struggling to algorithmically translate some text from one language to another.
Not much of a problem if you mistakenly order dog's testicles in a foreign restaurant. More of a problem, I suspect, when seeking medical advice or diagnosis.
But I suppose a leading fiction writer knows best, despite having no understanding of medicine or AI, because he can 'imagine'.
It is home and dry as far as medical diagnosis is concerned.
"Current AI development has a diagnostic performance that is comparable with medical experts, especially in image recognition-related fields. "
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
The whole psychodrama could have been avoided if Charles had either been allowed to marry Camilla in the first place or found someone else that he actually loved and married her while not shagging Camilla at the same time. Pretending to love Diana, marrying her but carrying on with Camilla at the same time was an unforgivable act of caddishness on his part and he deserved everything he got from Diana and then some. People who cheat on their spouses get zero sympathy from me.
I don't think the royals are expected to abide by the same sort of code of behaviour as the rest of us on this matter. Surely Diana went into the marriage with her eyes open? Wives of heirs are there to provide more heirs. If there is some sort of love, respect or affection then that is a bonus.
I agree with malcolm downthread that Charles appears to be a pompous arse. But being a pompous arse doesn't rank quite as low as publicy and repeatedly trashing your family (whom you claim to want a reconciliation with).
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
I would imagine absolute obscurity will only be reached when the last PBer stops commenting on him and his psychodrama.
So that’s a no, then.
Which do we reckon will happen first:
1) Scott P abandoning rejoin 2) Stuart Dickson supporting the Union 3) Us stopping wittering on about Prince Harry 4) Vladimir Putin coming out as an agent of Ukrainian Intelligence 5) The DfE managing to say something intelligent and well-informed about education 6) The heat death of the universe.
My money would be on 6...
You would lose your bet. The Earth will become uninhabitable in less that a billion years due to increased output from the Sun. The heat death of the universe will be some time further off if it ever happens.
Talking as you are of the Sun. When that event happens, what would be it's headline on such a seminal day? "Phew, what a scorcher".
Hopefully that ludicrous rag would be the first to go up in flames.
That’s surprisingly precious of the Vicar of Bath, who purports to enjoy robust debates - typical bully then - can dish it out but can’t take it (though blocking does seem to be a feature of Scottish politics):
Apparently, the convener of the committee that considers equalities, human rights and civil justice matter including debt, evictions and family law would prefer not to know what I think. Rampant hubris on my part, of course, but I remain flabbergasted.….
In general, I support anyone’s right to block on Twitter. But @joefitzsnp is the convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities, Human Rights and *CIVIL JUSTICE* Committee. That being so, I find this news 👇🏻surprising and disappointing.
SNP MSP's/MP's block almost everyone that asks them a question, they are pathetic and the worst at it. Why wings blocked me I have no idea I certainly did not have any great debate, at worst I commented/asked question once on something he posted.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
The whole psychodrama could have been avoided if Charles had either been allowed to marry Camilla in the first place or found someone else that he actually loved and married her while not shagging Camilla at the same time. Pretending to love Diana, marrying her but carrying on with Camilla at the same time was an unforgivable act of caddishness on his part and he deserved everything he got from Diana and then some. People who cheat on their spouses get zero sympathy from me.
I don't think the royals are expected to abide by the same sort of code of behaviour as the rest of us on this matter. Surely Diana went into the marriage with her eyes open? Wives of heirs are there to provide more heirs. If there is some sort of love, respect or affection then that is a bonus.
I agree with malcolm downthread that Charles appears to be a pompous arse. But being a pompous arse doesn't rank quite as low as publicy and repeatedly trashing your family (whom you claim to want a reconciliation with).
Golly. Complete capitulation to our insect overlords. Diana was a lovestruck teenager at the time, you could see her gushing and him hating it in the pre match interview. The one where he shittily said "whatever love means."
If being royal justifies this level of shittiness, abolishing it is the way forward. The man is a complete shit, and I don't see that having been cynically fathered by him for dynastic insurance, rules out saying so.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
Possibly true, but it is far from a posh sport. In my early years we were cramped into a cheap apartment sleeping in the hall and living room and that wasn't untypical in the big resorts. As I got more money I could afford all in chalets, but again that is not expensive compared to a typical summer holiday.
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
Though the average skiing holiday now costs £4688 for a family of 4. 17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
I have never ever paid anywhere near that amount. You need to stop reading articles written by people with more money than sense.
Skiing is incredibly expensive if you need to go during school holidays.
And quite reasonably priced if you don't.
So true, but there are ways around it (see previous posts and below) Worse of course are the bloody crowds on the slopes and at the lifts and of course lessons for the sprogs during school holidays.
What irritates me more is @HYUFD, as usual quoting from an article on the internet as if it is fact. Some page filler taken as gospel when he know f*** all about it. He probably hasn't ever put a pair of skis on ever whereas there will be quite a few on PB that have. I have skied twice a year every year from my 20s to my 60s, sometimes 3 times a year.
Ways around the school holiday issue are for instance going skiing at Whitsun on a glacier and organise it yourself. We taught our kids by doing that in Kaprun for several years. A RyanAir flight and cheap train, no crowds and perfect snow. Downside is the runs are limiting for a decent skier, but then I would go some other time to a good resort with friends for decent runs.
Relatively recently I went with friends who didn't want to pay much and we went to Zermatt. Now that is a proper resort and in Switzerland for goodness sake, but can be done on the cheap. Again organise yourself, cheap flight, cheap train direct to resort, apartment with living room that can be converted into a bedroom. Done during school holidays.
Outside of school holidays I used to go for apartments when I couldn't afford better and later chalets with a crowd when I could. I would never go back to apartments unless I had to. Sometimes if there were only 2 or 3 of us we would book Mark Warner (or equivalent) a few days before going at a fraction of the price (probably not possible during school holidays).
HYUFD is right though that, outside of bits of Scotland where you can do it locally (weather permitting) skiing in the UK is predominantly a sport pursued by well off posh people. There's nothing wrong with that, and there are of course exceptions, but anyone who has had enough exposure to different class/income groups over their lifetime will have spotted the correlation.
I disagree. I'm not posh. None of my friends are posh. We are all from working class backgrounds. We all skied or used to. The people you meet on the slopes are generally not posh. Loads of kids roughing it.
People who don't ski probably think people who ski are posh and they would generally be wrong.
I have skied in St Anton quite a bit. Don't meet posh people there. If you go over the top down to St Christophe and then over to Lech or Zurs you are likely to be wiped out by a toff (or even Toff herself), but as in all life there are posh places and not posh places and most ski slopes are full of ordinary people.
On checking, Google Translate does NOT offer Coptic, Old Norse, Cornish, Saami, Tibetan, Rapa Nui, Geez, Hmong, Sumerian or Klingon so ChatGPT really is doing something impressive here. If the translations are accurate, of course
Your Sinhala phrase means "I'm a little tired" according to Google Translate. I could see if some of my Sinhalese relatives can offer an alternative translation. According to Google Translate your phrase should read මම පූසෙක් මම මීයන් කනවා, and from my limited knowledge of Sinhala I know that the word for cat is correct in that translation.
Indeed, it seems at least half of them are wrong - often entirely wrong, and a bit crazy - yet others are right (and not necessarily the easier ones)
Fascinating. It does show how this machine will churn out plausible bullshit, when in the mood, and to make it worse the bullshit is mixed with impressive accuracy. Dangerous!
I wonder how it chooses the phrases to invent?! That's intriguing by itself
Now now. ChatGPT was going to remove the need for doctors to deal with complex medical problems the other day. Now it is struggling to algorithmically translate some text from one language to another.
Not much of a problem if you mistakenly order dog's testicles in a foreign restaurant. More of a problem, I suspect, when seeking medical advice or diagnosis.
But I suppose a leading fiction writer knows best, despite having no understanding of medicine or AI, because he can 'imagine'.
It is home and dry as far as medical diagnosis is concerned.
"Current AI development has a diagnostic performance that is comparable with medical experts, especially in image recognition-related fields. "
Why not tell us about the obstacles in the way of heavier-than-air flight?
There is a difference between medical AI/ML developed for a specific purpose such as imaging interpretation and ChatGBT, which seems to have learnt from the internet and Social Media to mix facts, misinterpretation and a self confidence in a cocktail of plausible bullshit that is what the audience wants to hear.
Prince Harry really is the son of King Charles III.
Prince Harry is acting with the same loyalty to his family as King Charles gave to his first wife.
I have a lot of sympathy for Harry. I’m in my mid 40s and I know I’ll be in bits when my mother dies, he had to go through that trauma before he turned 13.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
He is a pompous , snobby arsehole on the other hand so karma.
Well, he’s occupied his time with promoting food quality, environmentalism, community relations and, most recently, food banks.
Most of which he got into before they became fashionable with the politicians.
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
a) If there is snow it is difficult to get to b) It is cold c) The runs are rubbish.
Bellend, luckily we do not get arseholes like you coming. Pity poor old Europe having the likes of you over there wanting egg and chips with your morning SUN.
Putting aside the desirability or otherwise of egg and chips, Scotland has the major advantage that it's easy (and cheap!) to get to (assuming you're starting out from the UK, of course.) Deriding Scotland for not being the Rocky Mountains is like deriding the Chilterns for not being the Lake District. Obviously tge Lake District is bigger and better. But if you're in Buckinghamshire and fancy a walk...?
Well, Harry's got us all talking about his badly written drivel.
From what I have seen, the real question about all this is how the fuck did anyone so utterly lacking in literary talent manage to become established as a ghostwriter?
In important news, wind production is annoyingly not as high as it might be. Suspect some turbines have had to be turned off due to the gales.
On checking, Google Translate does NOT offer Coptic, Old Norse, Cornish, Saami, Tibetan, Rapa Nui, Geez, Hmong, Sumerian or Klingon so ChatGPT really is doing something impressive here. If the translations are accurate, of course
Your Sinhala phrase means "I'm a little tired" according to Google Translate. I could see if some of my Sinhalese relatives can offer an alternative translation. According to Google Translate your phrase should read මම පූසෙක් මම මීයන් කනවා, and from my limited knowledge of Sinhala I know that the word for cat is correct in that translation.
Indeed, it seems at least half of them are wrong - often entirely wrong, and a bit crazy - yet others are right (and not necessarily the easier ones)
Fascinating. It does show how this machine will churn out plausible bullshit, when in the mood, and to make it worse the bullshit is mixed with impressive accuracy. Dangerous!
I wonder how it chooses the phrases to invent?! That's intriguing by itself
Now now. ChatGPT was going to remove the need for doctors to deal with complex medical problems the other day. Now it is struggling to algorithmically translate some text from one language to another.
Not much of a problem if you mistakenly order dog's testicles in a foreign restaurant. More of a problem, I suspect, when seeking medical advice or diagnosis.
But I suppose a leading fiction writer knows best, despite having no understanding of medicine or AI, because he can 'imagine'.
Interesting use of the word 'leading' there.
Also dogs testicles are probably a shamanic medicine somewhere, so don’t be so Imperialist….
The problem is, it used to be about having a job. There's plenty who have full time jobs now and can't make ends meet. Meanwhile R4 thinks lack of snow in ski resorts is a story.
I would imagine R4 listeners are on average more likely to ski than the average Brit
To be fair, I have skied in Scotland, both on piste, off piste (a couple of Munros) and cross country (Glenmore & Clashindarroch). Its fine if you pick the right day, but you can't just pick a date in advance.
It is actually best in spring when the conditions are less variable and there isn't as much scratchy ice lurking round the corner.
I weep at the injustices suffered by poor Prince Harry.
Decades more of his tedium to look forward to. Or might we blessed with him drifting into obscurity now the story is sold?
The publishers will have got the 'juiciest' stories, I reckon. And the ones released so far probably damage H&M's brand than the royal family's.
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
I think I'd save the fee by not communicating at all.
I try very hard not to have any interest in this nonsense at all but I do, at last, feel sorry for Charles. He had a couple of decades with an extremely manipulative wife and ex wife making his life a misery by playing the media game and now his son is doing the same, despite his pleas not to. Charles is an emotionally stunted and damaged individual who inevitably has little to no understanding of normal life but no one deserves two helpings of this in a single lifetime.
The whole psychodrama could have been avoided if Charles had either been allowed to marry Camilla in the first place or found someone else that he actually loved and married her while not shagging Camilla at the same time. Pretending to love Diana, marrying her but carrying on with Camilla at the same time was an unforgivable act of caddishness on his part and he deserved everything he got from Diana and then some. People who cheat on their spouses get zero sympathy from me.
I don't think the royals are expected to abide by the same sort of code of behaviour as the rest of us on this matter. Surely Diana went into the marriage with her eyes open? Wives of heirs are there to provide more heirs. If there is some sort of love, respect or affection then that is a bonus.
I agree with malcolm downthread that Charles appears to be a pompous arse. But being a pompous arse doesn't rank quite as low as publicy and repeatedly trashing your family (whom you claim to want a reconciliation with).
Agree totally Cookie, Harry is either ill or a rank bad un. Totally lost the plot.
I've just watched Ben Elton's Upstart, Crow for the first time.
A friend tipped me off - had no idea that existed, even though it's been around 5 years.
I was crying tears of laughter in episode one. Brilliant.
Ben Elton's uncle Sir Geoffrey Elton was a distinguished Tudor historian. I read his book "The Tudor Constitution" for History A level.
Geoffrey Elton was the quintessential English establishment historian. Which brought him much criticism in his later years from the avant-garde historians.
This is really amusing given his background, of course. Indeed, as he had a sense of humour he found it so himself. He wrote a charming letter to one critic, noting 'I am not English-born and not perhaps quite so insular as you suppose.'
Ben's brother Tim, meanwhile, was something very senior in IBM. I met him once when our IT department was being outsourced. He looked exactly the same as his brother. It was mildly discombobulating.
Comments
A friend tipped me off - had no idea that existed, even though it's been around 5 years.
I was crying tears of laughter in episode one. Brilliant.
Unashamedly intellectual.
There's a superb one from lockdown. Loads of mask wearing, social distancing and toilet roll (moist moss) hoarding jokes.
The more you know about WS's plays the funnier and cleverer it is.
So I'm told.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HguqQSY8mR7NxGopc/2022-was-the-year-agi-arrived-just-don-t-call-it-that
We had all the lab glassware - a Liebig condenser is a thing of beauty.
To use a nice analogy, your meta instructions as humans is to reproduce as thats the DNA instructions. However how you interpret it is 100% off track as mesa (meta is outward, mesa inward) - likely to make money or do this or that - not a problem for a lifeform like us - big issue for an AI under different rules.
@Leon
https://twitter.com/benjaminbutter/status/1611341598595616770?s=20&t=_Zk1CRup8rD0wODizb4vVA
https://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1611292189262217217?s=20&t=_Zk1CRup8rD0wODizb4vVA
The lack of snow and glaciers receding obviously is important indicator of climate change and even before that skiers would be monitoring the ski reports daily on ceefax with their fingers crossed.
a) If there is snow it is difficult to get to
b) It is cold
c) The runs are rubbish.
In Denmark, where only twenty of the country’s 740 bank branches still hold cash in their vaults, 2022 was the first year without a bank robbery. There had been 222 as recently as 2002. Sutton, who said he robbed banks because ‘I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life’, would weep.
Why have Danish bank robbers hung up their swag bags? The reason is Denmark’s rapid transition towards a cashless society, expedited by the pandemic. In the four years to 2021, the proportion of cash used for purchases nearly halved, from 23 percent to 12 percent. Only Sweden and Norway use less cash than Denmark.
Fortunately, there are still plenty of ATMs in Denmark. And if one happens to have cash, it can still be used nearly everywhere. Unlike the UK, where retailers are entitled to refuse cash payments, staffed retail stores in Denmark are obliged to accept cash." (£)
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/where-have-denmarks-bank-robbers-gone/
17% of the annual UK household income and not much different to the cost of a holiday in the Maldives or Caribbean, something also more likely to be undertaken by the upper middle classes and the rich.
https://travelweekly.co.uk/articles/299857/family-ski-trips-account-for-fifth-of-average-disposable-income
In the US over half of skiers earn over $100 000 a year
https://www.powder.com/stories/opinion/extend-the-family/
One way ticket to Belford/Raigmore/ARI. Watch out for the mud.
Only if you have money to burn need it cost a lot.
Has he thought of changing his name from "Prince" to a symbol? If he looked through some spoilt ballots, he might get some ideas of one to use....
I mean maybe it doesn't matter if Prince Harry, the Royal Family and the British people are terrorist targets but you wouldn't have thought it's a position Random House would want to find themselves in would you?
And quite reasonably priced if you don't.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/06/us/newport-news-virginia-shooting/index.html
A 6-year-old boy is in police custody after he shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, Friday afternoon, Police Chief Steve Drew said in a news conference.
Drew said the female teacher – who is in her 30s – was shot inside a classroom and added that “this was not an accidental shooting.”
The police chief said there was an altercation between the teacher and the student, who had the firearm, and that a single round was fired.
"Microbiologist at the University of East Anglia, Professor David Livermore, and Journalist Nina Myskow clash over whether we should reintroduce certain Covid restrictions to save the NHS."
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1610756550867681281
From NYT live blog:
At Bullfeathers, a popular congressional watering hole that is showing the vote, one bargoer yelled “sellout!” when Boebert voted “present.”
What a prick.
Because 2 Republicans voted "Present" = Boebert & Gaetz.
Addendum - still possible for a member to change his - or her -vote.
Kevinite moving to adjourn until Noon Monday. Yeas and Nays requested & ordered.
Electronic roll call on motion to adjourn now in progress.
Surely that was what he was there to do?
This is stating the obvious, but the last speaker never held a floor vote unless she knew she would win.
However, in last few minutes, Republicans have been switching to Nay in droves, now 37 voting with the Democrats to say in session . . . and number keeps rising.
Less than half hour left to Friday in Washington DC.
Addendum - will be interesting to find out, who made the move among GOPers to stay in session? Then once it was obvious motion to adjourn would fail, bunch of others got on the bandwagon.
Most likely to look good - or at least a wee bit better - back home. Where folks are NOT in sympathetic to House members need for a restful weekend!
2nd Addendum - now 67 Republicans voting Nay
Slightly hollow ring to Republican cheers!
https://twitter.com/Al_Drago/status/1611580635969118209?t=fY6DVhyxASYm_sH6Y65hjw&s=19
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, holds her smart phone with former US President Donald Trump on the line, as Rep. Matt Rosendale, a Republican from Montana, waves it off during a meeting of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber on Friday.
That could be just enough to elect McCarthy tonight.
Boebert also "Present". (In at least one sense anyway.)
Crane switches to "Present" also.
Addendum - starting to look like KMcC will be Speaker the cock crows. (Am NOT referring to Matt Gaetz.)
Anyone wanna bet that George Santos will switch from Kevin McCarthy to Joe Biden?
Wouldn't change outcome of Speaker vote. AND note that POTUS does have power to pardon for federal crimes.
Hakeem Jeffries = 212
Present = 6 all Republicans
votes cast = 428
"Therefore, the Honorable Kevin McCarthy of the State of California, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives."
This is a tradition established I believe before the Civil War.
Kevin McCarthy is the 55th member of the US House of Representatives to be elected Speaker.
This is really amusing given his background, of course. Indeed, as he had a sense of humour he found it so himself. He wrote a charming letter to one critic, noting 'I am not English-born and not perhaps quite so insular as you suppose.'
I reckon in ten years they'll be reduced to sob stories about how the royal family are blanking them. Although who could blame the royal family: it's obvious that anything said in private will soon become public knowledge.
If I had a family member like that (and wealth...) I'd communicate via lawyer's letters...
Mr. Jessop, quite.
Harry's launched a TV series and book trashing his family, while claiming he wants to reconcile. But any conversation could easily end up as chapter 2 in his second book.
Not much of a problem if you mistakenly order dog's testicles in a foreign restaurant. More of a problem, I suspect, when seeking medical advice or diagnosis.
But I suppose a leading fiction writer knows best, despite having no understanding of medicine or AI, because he can 'imagine'.
Far from being incentivised in any way to store power or ensure that more of it reaches the grid, the current regime ensures that the owners of wind capacity are richly compensated for doing the opposite.
So that’s a no, then.
1) Scott P abandoning rejoin
2) Stuart Dickson supporting the Union
3) Us stopping wittering on about Prince Harry
4) Vladimir Putin coming out as an agent of Ukrainian Intelligence
5) The DfE managing to say something intelligent and well-informed about education
6) The heat death of the universe.
My money would be on 6...
Of course, collecting might be a problem but I'm sure we can get round that somehow.
Edit: Bah - too late as ever!
What irritates me more is @HYUFD, as usual quoting from an article on the internet as if it is fact. Some page filler taken as gospel when he know f*** all about it. He probably hasn't ever put a pair of skis on ever whereas there will be quite a few on PB that have. I have skied twice a year every year from my 20s to my 60s, sometimes 3 times a year.
Ways around the school holiday issue are for instance going skiing at Whitsun on a glacier and organise it yourself. We taught our kids by doing that in Kaprun for several years. A RyanAir flight and cheap train, no crowds and perfect snow. Downside is the runs are limiting for a decent skier, but then I would go some other time to a good resort with friends for decent runs.
Relatively recently I went with friends who didn't want to pay much and we went to Zermatt. Now that is a proper resort and in Switzerland for goodness sake, but can be done on the cheap. Again organise yourself, cheap flight, cheap train direct to resort, apartment with living room that can be converted into a bedroom. Done during school holidays.
Outside of school holidays I used to go for apartments when I couldn't afford better and later chalets with a crowd when I could. I would never go back to apartments unless I had to. Sometimes if there were only 2 or 3 of us we would book Mark Warner (or equivalent) a few days before going at a fraction of the price (probably not possible during school holidays).
Apparently, the convener of the committee that considers equalities, human rights and civil justice matter including debt, evictions and family law would prefer not to know what I think. Rampant hubris on my part, of course, but I remain flabbergasted.….
In general, I support anyone’s right to block on Twitter. But @joefitzsnp is the convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Equalities, Human Rights and *CIVIL JUSTICE* Committee. That being so, I find this news 👇🏻surprising and disappointing.
https://twitter.com/RoddyQC/status/1609914678888611842
Roddy is Dean of the Faculty of Advocates
I see the tabloids prolapsing over Harry’s Taliban tally and the huge danger he's put everyone in are now calling the deid Talibs ‘victims’, and yet..
https://twitter.com/pete_nicoll/status/1611599947069263872?s=61&t=7_byrTfKizIVTQEIG_7Few
"Current AI development has a diagnostic performance that is comparable with medical experts, especially in image recognition-related fields. "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6716335/
Why not tell us about the obstacles in the way of heavier-than-air flight?
Surely Diana went into the marriage with her eyes open? Wives of heirs are there to provide more heirs. If there is some sort of love, respect or affection then that is a bonus.
I agree with malcolm downthread that Charles appears to be a pompous arse. But being a pompous arse doesn't rank quite as low as publicy and repeatedly trashing your family (whom you claim to want a reconciliation with).
Toodle-pip!
If being royal justifies this level of shittiness, abolishing it is the way forward. The man is a complete shit, and I don't see that having been cynically fathered by him for dynastic insurance, rules out saying so.
People who don't ski probably think people who ski are posh and they would generally be wrong.
I have skied in St Anton quite a bit. Don't meet posh people there. If you go over the top down to St Christophe and then over to Lech or Zurs you are likely to be wiped out by a toff (or even Toff herself), but as in all life there are posh places and not posh places and most ski slopes are full of ordinary people.
Prince Harry is acting with the same loyalty to his family as King Charles gave to his first wife.
I have a lot of sympathy for Harry. I’m in my mid 40s and I know I’ll be in bits when my mother dies, he had to go through that trauma before he turned 13.
Most of which he got into before they became fashionable with the politicians.
Deriding Scotland for not being the Rocky Mountains is like deriding the Chilterns for not being the Lake District. Obviously tge Lake District is bigger and better. But if you're in Buckinghamshire and fancy a walk...?
From what I have seen, the real question about all this is how the fuck did anyone so utterly lacking in literary talent manage to become established as a ghostwriter?
In important news, wind production is annoyingly not as high as it might be. Suspect some turbines have had to be turned off due to the gales.
https://gridwatch.co.uk/
http://winterhighland.com/cams/glencoe/access2200.jpeg?t=1673084456
To be fair, I have skied in Scotland, both on piste, off piste (a couple of Munros) and cross country (Glenmore & Clashindarroch). Its fine if you pick the right day, but you can't just pick a date in advance.
It is actually best in spring when the conditions are less variable and there isn't as much scratchy ice lurking round the corner.