Cross-reading #6

Six Ways to Think Long-term: A Cognitive Toolkit for Good Ancestors (blog.longnow.org)

The need to draw on our capacity to think long-term has never been more urgent, whether in areas such as public health care (like planning for the next pandemic on the horizon), to deal with technological risks (such as from AI¹-controlled lethal autonomous weapons), or to confront the threats of an ecological crisis where nations sit around international conference tables, bickering about their near-term interests, while the planet burns and species disappear.

GPT-3 and the future of human productivity (nesslabs.com)

GPT-3² has effectively ingested most of what humans have published online. It uses all the text available on the Internet to generate a statistically plausible response based on the text input it receives.

I asked GPT-3 to make a presentation for me (bemmu.com)

I used the OpenAI³ API to generate one slide and one image caption at a time, asking GPT-3 about three times for each and picking the best output. When it generated image caption, I would go online to find a matching image, or if none was available I’d try to splice up an image using Photopea and Remove.bg.

An update on our security incident (blog.twitter.com)

At this time, we believe attackers targeted certain Twitter employees through a social engineering scheme. What does this mean? In this context, social engineering is the intentional manipulation of people into performing certain actions and divulging confidential information.

Hackers Tell the Story of the Twitter Attack From the Inside (nytimes.com)

Kirk did have access to Twitter’s most sensitive tools, which allowed him to take control of almost any Twitter account, including those of former President Barack Obama, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Elon Musk and many other celebrities.

Swiss Political System: More than You ever Wanted to Know (I.) - 250bpm (250bpm.com)

Still, a disclaimer is due: I am not Swiss. I have lived here only for five years. Neither am I a political scientists or a sociologist. If you are Swiss, or simply know better than me, let me know about any inaccuracies in the article.

Swiss police automated crime predictions but has little to show for it (algorithmwatch.org)

A review of 3 automated systems in use by the Swiss police and judiciary reveals serious issues. Real-world effects are impossible to assess due to a lack of transparency.

How do I design a game from scratch? | Team Avocado Blog (teamavocado.co)

A tutorial about core loops, and how to apply them to PICO-8⁴ games.

DIY Video Hosting (tyler.io)

On average, my bandwidth bill is about $11/month - and that includes videos, static assets, and ALSO binary downloads for all of my Mac apps. Previously, I was paying $20/month just for video hosting on top of the rest of my bandwidth.

How to learn JavaScript | Derek Sivers (sivers.org)

When solving a problem, everyone will point you to some pre-made solution. “Use jQuery! Use React! Use this library and save yourself some typing!” But no! Not yet! Do it the hard way. Solve everything yourself with plain JavaScript. It’s the best way to learn.

How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (npr.org)

Markham recommends an approach close to that used by Inuit parents. When the kid misbehaves, she suggests, wait until everyone is calm. Then in a peaceful moment, go over what happened with the child. You can simply tell them the story about what occurred or use two stuffed animals to act it out.

How meal timings affect your waistline (bbc.com)

When overweight and obese women were put on a weight-loss diet for three months, those who consumed most of their calories at breakfast lost two and a half times more weight than those who had a light breakfast and ate most of their calories at dinner – even though they consumed the same number of calories overall.

The people with hidden immunity against Covid-19 (bbc.com)

While the latest research suggests that antibodies against Covid-19 could be lost in just three months, a new hope has appeared on the horizon: the enigmatic T cell⁵.