Holt

@holt.bsky.social

298 Followers 1388 Following

Chicagoan

A snippet from Illinois new Frontier Models in AI law. It reads: "Frontier model" means a foundation model that was trained using a quantity of computing power greater than 10 to the 26 integer or floating-point operations. Of course “to the” is my edit here, the 26 appears superscripted. It is the first time I’ve ever seen superscript used in a legal document where it doesn’t mean footnote. My brain had a hard time with this.
“Some cats adopt the dark, but I was born in it.” My cat says, shrouded in a halo of light as he perches atop a laptop to prevent me from purchasing more dog food online.
A manhole cover in a patch of grass. It says, in raised lettering “LAWN”, as if there is an additional, subterranean lawn under the one in which it is embedded.
The human male stands behind the human female while pointing the scanner at the back of her head.
The scene is an incredibly manicured back yard. The ground is sterile, flat. Is it lawn that someone spent hours manicuring, or is it astroturf? The human male points a scanning device at the human female. The human female does not move.
Fred Armisen in that one episode of Parks and Rec.
An AI generated image of a broken clock.
‘Waymo told advocates that expecting it to respect bike lanes is "too high a bar" because customers expect to be dropped off in them, said Christopher White, executive director of the San Francisco Bike Coalition.’ Note that the quotes are reporting what Christopher White said was said.
An Al Pastor California Burrito from Vicky’s, out of focus as if it is a cryptid emerging from Lake Michigan.
The Claude Code mascot, with speech bubble.
Bluesky status message that some systems are down: “We are investigating an incident with service in one of our reginos”
A google translate page, converting English “Howdy” to Gujarati “નમસ્તે”/“Namastē”. I’m definitely picturing Sam Elliott’s character in Parks and Rec (Ron Dunn) telling this directly to a google server very credulously.
A help page from DuckDB, which shows a table being loaded from a json file. The data has three columns.1) “duck” which holds an integer.2)”goose” which holds an array of integers.3) “swan” which holds a double. What crimes does this dataset represent?
A garden statue of Godzilla, covered in gnomes. Most of the gnomes are being lovingly embraced by Godzilla, while one jubilantly slides down his back/tail.
Tom Waits, ascending to heaven while dropping the dopest lines you’ve ever heard.
An astronaut stares at an Outlook logo hovering in the cold dark void of space while another astronaut behind them points a smaller Outlook logo at the back of their head.
The title page of the book Constitutional Chaff, by Jane Jacobs (nee Butzner). The subtitle is “Rejected suggestions of the Constitutional Convention of 1787”.
A lolrus (southern elephant seal) with a bucket, tongue sticking out as if to taste the air on arrakis. Above it in font bold enough to not care about social norms like legibility the lone word “Bucket” sprawls across the surface of the planet.
A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION - IBM training manual (1979)
The Call an Ambulance but not for me meme, but it says “I Already Voted, But Not for You”
Porky Pig tipping his hat and saying “That’s Au Chevolks!”
A black cat in a roughly shoebox sized cardboard box. He is wondering why I am bothering him. I am about to explain to him that it is for the amusement of the masses, and “can’t he just help a guy out this once?” He will not, he will yawn in my face and minutes later he will push a book off the table.
Norman Rockwell painting: Freedom of Speech
A screenshot of a blocked post and the following reply by @fiveacre.bsky.app: rather than play advocate, go meet your client in person to be sure you understand their concerns
A Nextdoor post from South Evanston which reads “Good evening, everyone. Just a heads-up for you. There is a man who rides...”
A screenshot of a portion of the bluesky map, with "American Progressive Democrats" at the top, and "Progressive American Democrats" at the bottom, separated by a sea of europeans.
A sign for a fine dining establishment in Mexico City called “the original chicago Bernie’s Beef Bike”
A theatre program for Shrek the Musical with a stage in the background.
Two men in fancy costumes stare at a large greenish humanoid. Nothing is the right color, the surroundings appear cut out of construction paper. Maybe the green humanoid is holding a giant brass whistle? Everyone involved has certainly just said something offensive. If their faces weren’t so blurry you could tell if they were laughing about it.
A picture of Elon Musk, presumedly florbed out of his gorb, inset in a tweet which claims “Elon Musk in an interview saying you can turn someone into a butterfly with mRNA.”
A snippet of text from the QTed article reading: “South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world. Its population is (optimistically) projected to shrink by over two thirds over the next 100 years. If current fertility rates persist, every hundred South Koreans today will have only six great-grandchildren between them.” Highlighted is “If current fertility rates persist”
Pikotaro, acting out how he prefers to assemble said turkey.
A snapshot of the line change count from a GitHub Pull Request. 48 lines added 3265096 lines removed.
The most recent paper issue of The Onion sitting on top of the May 13, 1999 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Chicago Alderperson Andre Vasquez, explaining that much of the Chicago City council was surprised to find out that Police Settlements were being paid out via loans.
Jennifer Forestal, author of Democracy by Design, with laser eyes.
Ed Harris, cast as Bud Brigman in The Abyss (1989), with a horrified expression on his face.
An excerpt from an article about Peter Thiel: He believes the Armageddon will be ushered in by an antichrist-type figure who cultivates a fear of existential threats such as climate change, Al and nuclear war to amass inordinate power. The idea is this figure will convince people to do everything they can to avoid something like a third world war, including accepting a one-world order charged with protecting everyone from the apocalypse that implements a complete restriction of technological prog ss. In his mind, this is already happening. Thiel said that international financial bodies, which make it more difficult for people to shelter their wealth in tax havens, are one sign the antichrist may be amassing power and hastening Armageddon, saying: "It's become quite difficult to hide one's money."
Laser eyes Jennifer Forestal, author of Designing for Democracy.
A highlight from the users BlueSky bio saying “Twitter saved my sanity during lockdown.”
An artistic black and white photo of a black cat haloed in sunlight. His eyes are glowing in the photo, and they are not pleased that you have interrupted his nap on his laptop.
Elinor Ostrom, laser eyes blazing.
Anthony Bourdain, withering stare, about to say “No. I hate the aristocracy, man”
The norman Rockwell free speech painting.
Elseviers generic Service Temporarily Unavailable error page.
A large piece of white paper with “F’ up process” written in felt tip marker block letters.
A box of Alf trading cards.
A two-fronted Toyota. It probably has not engaged in the most exciting races, but it _could_ for the purposes of this joke.
Papas con chorizo piroshki, air fried, shallow fried, and deep fried. I regret to inform you, dear reader, that deep fried was the superior method.
An AI generated video of a reporter interviewing a man in a blue polo shirt. The reporter asks why he likes living in Phoenix, and he responds “I live here because it feels like nowhere. It feels like I don’t exist.”
A tecate, a honey buffalo fried chicken sandwich, and a copy of A Different Democracy.
A white truck that locked up its rear tires and peeled out, leaving a black mark on the pavement and a large volume of white smoke in the air.
A dinosauric pina coladapadon exiting a Margaritaville.
A “motivational poster” memegenerated poster of a male lion, its mane blowing in the wind, staring with determination into the future it is destined to bring about. It is captioned “I am going to buy that chicken sandwich tomorrow and review it”.
Two skeets which read: If 25% of the population believed that a creature called 'Glonzo' caused high power prices by chewing through transmission lines, any competent politician would be negligent in not trying to find a way to exploit this. This doesn't mean that these people wouldn't be fucking morons. Trump has a natural advantage with these voters over people who give a shit about policy or reality because we'll mumble something about hardening electric infrastructure while trying to hide contempt, he'll say that the marines will kill Glonzo under him.
A concept mapping from The Roman Empire to Deez Nuts, apparently being narrated by a young and exasperated Hannah Arendt. Mapping follows 4 paths. 1: The Roman Empire -> Political Power -> Propaganda -> Meme Culture -> Deez Nuts 2: The Roman Empire -> Conquest -> Expansion -> Territorial Claims -> Deez Nuts 3: The Roman Empire -> Gladiatorial Games -> Spectacle -> Comedy -> Deez Nuts 4: The Roman Empire -> Senate -> Rhetoric -> Wordplay -> Deez Nuts
Ostensibly this is a video clip about Interuniversal Teichmueller Theory, but it is also a man saying “nobody knows what is going on” which, I feel, everyone can identify with.
A book titled “Plus Size Player” by Danielle Allen, suggested as my next read by CPL. This author is a different person than the Danielle Allen I have actually read via CPL. whenever I get these suggestions I imagine Ziblatt putting a paper bag over his head and blasting out Tinglers like “How Democracies Bi”.