#zuzai

https://zuzai.org/

Every once in a while I visit this short video by Elle Cordova, to refresh my enjoyment of her erudite sense of humour. I watch it once; then I realise I need to watch it again; then again, and again, and so an hour passes with this short piece on permanent repeat, each repeat revealing another nuance in the battle of the punctuation marks. A flawless masterpiece.

En Dash speaks to Oxford Comma:
"_I signify every word and blank space in a page range, I am the infinite stairwell between integers, I am the bloody embrace between two countries at war, and on a gravestone I am the entire life lived between birth and death, who are you?_ "

https://youtube.com/shorts/ky0YOo7_Y0o

#ElleCordova #EnDash #OxfordComma #punctuation

Our Lady Joan Mastodon was in pontificating mode, as she often was when dinner had been disappointing.

The purpose of the Save Draft button, she expounded, walking up and down in front of the open window, is to make it easier for you to delete your ill-considered posts before you send them. The Draft feature is _not_ meant to let you edit your posts and then send them. Write this down, Sir Archibald, you should take notes like the others.

We write a toot (she continued), and as we write it we have a feeling it's a little off. So we save it as a draft. _Then we forget it_! That's the whole point of the Draft feature. We never return to old drafts. We toot live. Oh for heaven's sake, Archie, you are still not taking any notes. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

It took our Lady Joan until after dessert to regain her cheerful spirits. She did not like it if her knights ignored her lectures. And she was right on the Draft feature, of course.

#JoanMastodon #DeletingIsStrength

You can see the empty eyes, Lestrade. The self-satisfied smile. This man is no murderer, Inspector. He is an AI victim.

Holmes's voice revealed something akin to pity for the man in custody.

It is plain that our man here has lost all capacity to plan anything as complex as an actual murder of a physical human being. Notice his hand, still grasping the ergonomic mouse even though you have taken away his laptop. Too much ego boosting from the Affirmation Machine has closed him in on himself. If you check his laptop, you will find an open Claude session, not a floor plan of the victim's apartment.

Your murderer is still out and about, Lestrade. What the man before us needs is rest and an Affirmation detox.

#SherlockHolmes #noLLM #StopTheAICorruption

Higher Education's march toward our eventual genAI suicide continues.

N is an enthusiastic young colleague who's been promoting genAI all along. This week he shares a new paper he's written. In it we find a lengthy list of the dangers of genAI and why we shouldn't be using it. Wait, what? Is this the same guy?

Let's read on. What is N's solution to the recognised genAI failure? "Agentic AI." Ah, that's where we're heading!

A long list of agentic AI's presumed powers follows, along with presumed supporting pedagogical theory. No reference to actual practice: like Sam Altman we trade on future promises.

The soulless, person-less future we are promised, without any hint of irony: "AI as a collaborative partner"; "from AI as a servant to AI as a learning companion".

Heaven help us.

#StopTheAICorruption #HigherEducationChatter

Holmes did not appreciate being interrupted, but having watched him writing and deleting draft toot after draft toot for several hours, I could not hold back any longer. Forgive me, Holmes, tell me, do you save your unsent toots for later editing?

Holmes put aside his ancient Blackberry. Oh, my dear Watson, that you should even ask! Of course not. Lestrade no doubt saves his draft toots on his iPhone, the good man. But then he also scribbles every obvious fact into his little detective's notebook, does he not. Good for him, I say. No, Watson, I don't save deleted drafts. I have a brain.

I write because I wish to write. If I want to share what I wrote, we post it. If not, I delete it. If any part of it persists, it does so without record. Now, let me get back to my phone.

He did not mind my scribbling down his words in my notebook as he spoke.

#SherlockHolmes #DoctorWatson #Lestrade #drafts #MastodonCulture

I had never seen Holmes cry before. He sat in his chair, his face in his hands, It's broken, he stammered. It's broken.

I saw the pipe on the table, fractured. It's a delicate material, meerschaum, I had told Holmes many times that briar is so much more practical. But Holmes said he loved the coolness of the smoke from his Calabash.

There was movement in the chair. Moriarty gave it to me, Holmes sobbed. It was a token of his affection. The last thing he left me.

I began to realise the enormity of what I had just learnt. It felt a little awkward, too. I rang the bell to call Mrs Hudson and ask her to bring the tea.

#SherlockHolmes #DoctorWatson #Moriarty MresHudson #pipes #meerschaum #vss

It was the year of the Great Darkness. Chameo, the Lord of DarkSky, became ever more erratic. His followers grew uneasy. Many were seen in the free fields of the Mastodonians, setting up temporary tents, talking to each other about the decline of DarkSky and occasionally asking a Mastodonian passer-by about life in the free fields.

What shall we do about the visitors from DarkSky, one of the knights asked the Lady Joan Mastodon.

Let them find their own way, she said. Most will return to Chameo, their souls are bound to the Great Algo, even if they don't know it themselves. But some will stay.

Those who stay will be welcome, make sure to help them settle. Those who wish to leave we shall not stop. We need not worry either way. Our task is unchanged: to make free expression resonate. Go, plant your hashtags now.

#JoanMastodon #DarkSky #BlueSky #MastodonMigration #hashtags