Roslyn

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Here’s a round-up of advice about how to say no at work.

the basics

how to say no to a work request

can I flat-out refuse to do a project?

how to say “that’s not my job”

how to tell someone “this is your job, not mine”

how to tell coworkers “you need to do that yourself”

how to say no to coworkers who ask me to take on work I don’t have time for

how do I say no to admin tasks that aren’t my job?

I don’t want to be the go-to person for everything at work

how to say no to your boss (podcast)

saying no when your workload has become unreasonably high

how to “push back” with vendors, partners, and other external contacts

saying no in networking

how to set boundaries when contacts get pushy

how to turn down requests to meet, network, or pick your brain

specific cases and miscellaneous

you need a not-to-do list

how do I stop people from asking me to perform the admin tasks from my old job?

how to turn down “volunteer” (but not really) projects at work

how to say “no, I won’t clean the bathroom”

I’m sick of being the office printer lady

I don’t want to be the office baker

my coworker constantly asks me for personal favors

butyoutoldmeiwasfunny:

(via Ballerina in Containers, On the Edge – By JR in Le Havre, France | STREET ART UTOPIA)

verdictvelvet:

fucker! we wanted to trek those

For The Pudding, Alvin Chang examines loneliness through the lens of individual responses from the American Time Use Survey:

In this story, we’ll go through 24 hours of a typical weekend day in 2021. We know what people did – and who they did it with – because, since 2003, the American Time Use Survey has asked people to track how they use their time.

By the end of the day, we’ll learn that Martin’s isolation isn’t unique. In fact, loneliness has become a far more common experience in the last few decades – and it was supercharged by the pandemic.

The heart of the piece is in the anti-aggregate view of individuals through 24 hours. See each person’s schedule, who they spend time with, and how that changes through the day. Sorting draws patterns. The scrolly clock on the right ticks. And it works on mobile. Chang makes the data immediately relatable.

See it.

Tags: alone, Alvin Chang, The Pudding, time use, well-being

When you compare two areas on a single map, it can be a challenge to compare the actual size of them because of the trade-offs with projecting a three-dimensional space onto a two-dimensional space. Josh Horowitz made a thing that automatically rescales side-by-side maps as you pan and zoom, so that you get a more accurate comparison.

Tags: Josh Horowitz, scale

THROWS WINGFUL OF POPCORN ON THE GROUND

From websites: 

The story goes that Miami- and New York-based artist-designer Michele Oka Doner chanced upon a thorny branch one day and got the notion to domesticate its menacing, untamed beauty.

"Terrible Chair" is the fulfillment of that ambition.

Oka Doner fashioned real thorn bushes into the shape she desired, then cast the form in gilded bronze.

The end result is less a straightforward, functional piece of furniture than an artifact from a magical fairytale setting.

"Terrible Chair" is imbued with the mystery of a cursed princess's makeshift home in an enchanted forest.

• Designed and manufactured in 1981

• 31.5" x 17.5" x 15"

• Edition of 1 (one)

December 19, 1955 — see The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958

ms-demeanor:

uvradical:

foxgirlsounds:

spandexinspace:

I need everyone to know that the ship Götheborg, the world’s largest ocean-going wooden sailing ship, answered a distress call the other day.

Imagine waiting for the coast guard or whatever to show up and instead a replica of 18th century merchant ship pulls up and tows you to the coast.

pov: you’ve been transported to the 17th century

#in the article it says that the sailboat sailors were concerned because they could not be towed quickly because of the kind of boat#so they asked Götheborg what type of ship they were and warned that they would not be able to go above a certain speed#and götheborg went ’ we are also a sailboat. 50 meters length. no worries :) ’#and the poor sailboat sailors were just like ’ That’s not possible. they have to be messing with us’ and then the ship Rolled Up (via bunjywunjy)

I’m crying. Here’s a photo of a sailor from the Götheborg watching over the little sailboat in tow:

From the story:

We repeatedly emphasized that we were aboard a small 8-meter sailboat, but the response was the same each time: “We are a 50-meter three-masted sailboat, and we offer our assistance in towing you to Paimpol.” We were perplexed by the size difference between our two boats, as we feared being towed by a boat that was too large and at too fast a speed that could damage our boat.

The arrival of the Götheborg on the scene was rapid and surprising, as we did not expect to see a merchant ship from the East India Company of the XVIII century. This moment was very strange, and we wondered if we were dreaming. Where were we? What time period was it? The Götheborg approached very close to us to throw the line and pass a large rope. The mooring went well, and our destinies were linked for very long hours, during which we shared the same radio frequency to communicate with each other.

The crew of the Götheborg showed great professionalism and kindness towards us. They adapted their speed to the size of our boat and the weather conditions. We felt accompanied by very professional sailors. Every hour, the officer on duty of the Götheborg called us to ensure everything was going well.[…]

This adventure, very real, was an incredible experience for us. We were extremely lucky to cross paths with the Götheborg by chance and especially to meet such a caring crew.

Dear commander and crew of the Götheborg, your kindness, and generosity have shown that your ship is much more than just a boat. It embodies the noblest values of the sea, and we are honored to have had the chance to cross your path and benefit from your help.

“Our destinies were linked for very long hours” is just knocking me out.

I wish I was as cool as Cat >:(

December 16, 1955 — see The Complete Peanuts 1955-1958

The military backed Senate this week blocked a popular progressive candidate from becoming Prime Minister in Thailand. We look back at a particularly troubled year in the Kingdom’s history.

.

Despite its status as a mecca for tourists, Thailand always has an undercurrent of political turmoil, violence, and corruption. The country has always been run by a tight knitted group of bureaucrats, princes, generals, and businessmen, who were reactionary against any slight challenge to their power. As a result, there have been 18 coups and 18 constitutions since 1932 in Thailand, each one staged to thwart the progressive forces from coming to power.

In late 1973, a popular uprising led to the end of the military dictatorship of Field Marshall Thanom. The king invited the chancellor of Thammasat University, a leading jurist, to form an interim government. However, democracy did not take root, and three years later, when Thanom returned from his exile, further student led uprising broke out. Popular refrains still levied against students and activists — of them being communist and anti royalist — were uttered and extremely violent suppression began.

On the night of October 5th 1976, five thousand students were gathered overnight at Thammasat to protest the return of Thanom. At 5:30 AM, a bomb was fired into the Thammasat grounds and shootings began. By 7:30 AM, the campus gates are smashed open, and paramilitary groups and radicalized right-wing protestors stormed the campus. Many died from police gunshots; others were lynched by the crowd, stakes thrust through their dead bodies and women stripped naked with stakes thrust through their breast or sexual organs.

Neal Ulevich, who was covering the protests for AP remembered:

The students had surrendered — a few were able to flee. The paramilitaries made them lie down on the ground. At that point I decided it was nearly over, and to leave before someone demanded my film. I moved to the campus gate. I could see commotion there. I worked my way through it and took a few photos — one, of two policemen escorting a student off campus as he was sucker-punched in the face by a rightist.

Then I saw crowds milling about two trees in Sanam Luang. Among those in the chaos at the gate was an elderly German tourist with an 8mm movie camera, apparently from the Royal Hotel across Sanam Luang. I screamed at him to leave before he was killed. He seemed to be having a good time and ignored me. At the first of the trees, I saw the chair/hanged student. I stayed a moment to see if anyone was looking at me. Then I made a few frames and walked over to the other tree, where another student was hanged. I made a few frames. After that I walked toward the hotel and hailed a taxi. Both hanged students were dead by the time I saw them.

I returned to the AP bureau desperate to have the darkroom tech develop the film and get the first of the prints to PTT [Post and Telephone Office] for radio-photo transmission. I was quite sure all international communications would be shut down or censored within a few hours. At that time, we could not send images from the bureau. Photos had to be printed, captioned and filed like a telegram from PTT. At the bureau I gave Denis Gray a quick summary of what I had seen. He was astonished and began questioning me closely. I told him to hold off until my film was developed and printed. He could see the entire photo record at that point; it spoke louder than words, as photos often do. When the film was developed, I selected the chair image and another, captioned them and dispatched them by messenger to the PTT, hoping to beat any closure of communications. Then I went back to work printing more of my pictures and a few by Mangkorn from earlier in the day. When the messenger returned I asked him if the PTT employees had said anything to suggest censorship. He said no, they just commented on the amazing images. That day we sent — as I recall — about 17 images, 12 of mine and the rest by AP Thai photographers.

The follow-up included images of bodies being burned. All the images cleared before the communications switch was turned off. To put things in perspective, sending 17 images was nearly unheard of, for reasons of effort and cost. But this was clearly a story that deserved to have all available resources thrown at it. We sent those images to Tokyo AP, where they were automatically relayed to New York and London AP. In the evening we began to hear that police had raided Thai newspapers seizing film of the events. Foreign agencies were not visited.

The chaos was used to justify a military coup later that same day. The military would insist that the students fired first – something protesters have always denied. Official figures put the death toll at 46, with 167 wounded and more than 3,000 students arrested. Unoffiically, the death toll was over 100. Nobody was held accountable for the atrocity, and the country’s successive governments have shown that they are still highly sensitive to discussion of it.

The photo above it inspired several Thai theatre productions and movies; and has been used in countless satirical internet memes. The word kao-ee, or ‘chair’ itself became a macabre euphemism in Thailand, a warning about what can happen to those with anti-establishment thoughts. Years later, when Thammasat University Drama Club re-enacted the hanging above (with an effigy which alledgedly stood for the then crown prince, the current king) it was accused of lese majeste and even the newspaper The Bangkok Post which re-printed the re-enactment got embroiled in the controversy.

Ulevich won the Pulitzer and World Press Photo Award for the photo. He recalled the irony.

When I won the Pulitzer, the Bangkok papers noted it on page one. They were very proud that a photographer from Bangkok had won the Pulitzer. They didn’t show the pictures.

.

If you like what I do and what I write, or simply wants me to write more, you can support me via Patreon. I had tremendous fun researching and writing Iconic Photos, and the Patreon is a way for this blog to be self-sustaining.

Proceeds mainly go to buying photography reference books and support me on my research (re: paywalled articles, trips to various archives). In addition to monthly addenda posts on Patreon, readers who subscribe on Patreon might have access to a few blog posts early; chance to request topics or to participate in some polls

Even if Patreon isn’t your thing, you can support by re-sharing, or tweeting about the blog or the specific posts on here. Thanks for your continued support!  Here is the link:

https://www.patreon.com/iconicphotos

FACEBOOK MEMORIES

Sometimes I love it when Facebook shows me memories - like fun holidays I took with my wife. We have had many adventures after all.

Other times it shows me ex-partners, and I feel a little sting.

But this particular memory, which seems to come up every year, really hits hard.

So many people found this photo funny, because we’d been to a party the night before, and I was clearly ‘SO hungover!!!’

I WAS hungover, but not so much from the alcohol as the fistful of prescription drugs I had swallowed to try to make the noise stop. I didn’t know how much to take or what would happen. I just wanted my head to be quiet.

This photo the next morning is me, hungover (true), but mostly just grappling with the fact that I was still alive, and trying to make sense of what that meant for me.

I think I was 28 at the time. I’m now 39, and I haven’t made another attempt since. A lot has changed. I’m a different person, but I also have a different support network. I have learned how to communicate that I am not OK, and the people I love know what that means.

I feel a lot safer now. I still have times where I just want my brain to be quiet. But I have better ways to get to a place of peace.

Bakhmut, Ukraine, once a city of nearly 80,000, has been obliterated by a year of shelling and assault from the Russian Armed Forces. An estimated 4,000 people were left in the city as of March, almost every building has been left scorched or reduced to rubble, and craters can be seen in parks and courtyards. Last week, Russia claimed to have captured Bakhmut, while a small outfit of Ukrainian forces remains on the eastern side of the city.

48.594722°, 38.000833°

Drone photo by Tyler Hicks / The New York Times

It is something of a platitude among native speakers of English to say that our language is a motley one. It is a West Germanic language that has taken in an enormous amount of vocabulary from non-Germanic languages, especially French, Latin, and Ancient Greek. These other languages have systems for the pluralization of nouns that differ from the predominant system in English and, in some cases, users of English have favored pluralizing nouns derived from other languages according to the morphological rules of the word’s language of origin. As a result of this and other factors, pluralizing nouns in English is sometimes a controversial subject.

One of the most controversial of all English nouns to pluralize is octopus, which ultimately derives from the Greek word ὀκτώπους (oktṓpous), which is a compound of the Greek word ὀκτώ (oktṓ), meaning “eight,” and the noun πούς (poús), meaning “foot” or “leg.” English-speakers have tried to pluralize this noun in various ways, with the most popular plural forms being octopuses and octopi. But which plural for this word is the most pedantically correct? In this post, I will delve into the wonderful and exciting world of etymology to answer this question.

Background on nouns in Ancient Greek

In Ancient Greek, every noun has a grammatical gender of masculine, feminine, or neuter. When a person wants to use a noun, they decline it (i.e., change the form) according to number and case. Number indicates whether a noun is singular or plural (or, in some rare cases, dual) and case indicates how the person is using the noun syntactically.

A total of five noun cases exist in Ancient Greek: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative. A noun may take a different form in each number and case, with the exception that, for all nouns, the vocative plural is always identical to the nominative plural across all genders and declensions. As a result of this, a single noun in Ancient Greek may have up to five different singular forms and four different plural forms: one form for each of the five different cases, minus the vocative plural.

For our purposes today, we will ignore the genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative cases and focus on the nominative, which the case that a person uses for a noun when it is the subject of a clause.

ὀκτώπους in Ancient Greek

In Ancient Greek, the most common name for the creature that English speakers know today as an octopus was actually πολύπους (polýpous), which is formed from the prefix πολυ- (poly-), which means “many,” plus the word πούς (poús), which means “foot” or “leg.” This is the word that the Greek philosopher Aristotle (lived 384 – 322 BCE) uses for the creature throughout his various treatises on natural philosophy.

The word ὀκτώπους, by contrast, occurs in Greek mainly as a common adjective meaning “eight-legged” and it is not unambiguously attested as a name for the creature that English-speakers call an octopus until quite late.

The earliest attested use of the word ὀκτώπους as an adjective is in a fragment (fr. 80 Shorey) of a lost play by the Athenian comic playwright Kratinos (lived c. 519 – c. 422 BCE), which the medieval Greek scholar Photios (lived c. 810 – 893 CE) preserves through quotation in his own work (p. 326.19). The fragment reads: “ὀκτώπουν ἀνεγείρεις” (“You are stirring up an eight-legged thing!”).

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a Minoan terra-cotta vase dating to around 1500 BCE depicting an octopus, currently held in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum on Krete

Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the “eight-legged thing” that Kratinos references in this fragment is the same creature that twenty-first-century English-speakers know as an octopus, since we have no information about the fragment’s context.

It is possible that the “eight-legged thing” Kratinos references may be a crab, since later Greek writers use forms of the word ὀκτώπους to describe crabs. For instance, the Batrachomyomachia or Battle of the Frogs and the Mice, an anonymous comic mock epic poem in dactylic hexameter that was most likely written in around the late fourth century BCE, uses a plural form of the word in reference to crabs in line 298:

“ὀκτάποδες, δικάρηνοι, ἀχειρέες, οἱ δὲ καλεῦνται καρκίνοι.”

This means, in my own translation:

“They are eight-legged, two-headed, handless, and they are called crabs.”

Similarly, the Roman poet Statyllius Flaccus, who most likely flourished sometime around the beginning of the first century CE, uses the same word as an epithet to describe a crab in the following poem, which is preserved in the Greek Anthology 6.196:

“Ῥαιβοσκελῆ, δίχαλον, ἀμμοδύτορα
ὀπισθοβάμον᾿, ἀτράχηλον, ὀκτάπουν,
νήκταν, τερεμνόνωτον, ὀστρακόχροα,
τῷ Πανὶ τὸν πάγουρον ὁρμιηβόλος,
ἄγρας ἀπαρχάν, ἀντίθησι Κώπασος.”

This means, in my own translation:

“The line-fisher Kopasos dedicates to Pan
as a firstfruit of his catch the crab,
the bandy-legged, two-clawed, sand-diving,
backward-walking, neckless, eight-legged,
solid-backed, hard-skinned swimmer.”

Eventually, by late antiquity, Greek writers had begun to use the word ὀκτάπους (oktápous) to describe the creature that modern English speakers know as an octopus. The Greek medical writer Alexandros of Tralleis (lived c. 525 – c. 605 CE) uses the word with this meaning in his Twelve Books on Medicine 7.1.

ABOVE: Photograph from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website showing a Hellenistic bronze crab dating to between the third and first centuries BCE

Pluralizing ὀκτώπους in Ancient Greek

Now that we’ve examined evidence for the usage of the word ὀκτώπους in Ancient Greek, let’s talk about how one should pluralize it. ὀκτώπους declines as a third-declension masculine noun and the Greek third declension nominative plural ending for masculine and feminine nouns is -ες (-es). Based on this, someone might assume that the plural form of octopus according to Greek declension rules should be octopuses. This, however, would be incorrect.

In Greek, all noun forms other than the nominative singular are formed from the root stem, which is not always predictable from the nominative singular form. Thus, the root stem of ὀκτώπους is actually ὀκτώποδ- (oktṓpod-). To derive the nominative plural form of the noun, we must take this stem and add the third-declension masculine nominative plural ending. This gives us the marvelous, delightful plural form ὀκτώποδες (oktṓpodes).

If, therefore, a person wishes to be pedantically etymologically correct, then the plural form of the word octopus is octopodes. If we apply the standard rules for English pronunciation of Greek words, then this should be pronounced something like /ɔk.ˈtou.pɔ.dɛz/, with the third ⟨o⟩ and the final ⟨e⟩ both being pronounced as short, since they are both short vowels in Greek.

ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a singular octopus swimming

Where the incorrect plural form octopi comes from

The Greek diphthong ου (ou) is usually Latinized as a long ⟨ū⟩. Thus, the Greek word πούς (poús), which forms the second component of the word ὀκτώπους, becomes pūs in Latin.

In antiquity, the word ὀκτώπους was rare in Greek and consequently never entered into Latin. In 1758, however, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (lived 1707 – 1778) published the tenth edition of his work Systema Naturae or System of Nature, in which he laid out the system of binomial classification for living things. In this work, he coined the word octopus as genus name in New Latin, deriving the name from its Greek roots, possibly unaware that the word had existed in Ancient Greek.

The word octopus swiftly passed from New Latin into scientific English. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)’s online entry for the word lists its earliest attested use in English as occurring in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London volume 50, published in 1759, on page 778 in the following quotation: “The Polypus, particularly so called, the Octopus, Preke, or Pour-contrel . . .”

Unfortunately, some confusion about the word’s morphology seems to have arisen quite early. In Latin, second-declension masculine nouns end in -us in the nominative singular and end in -ī in the nominative plural. English speakers have often continued to use the second-declension masculine nominative plural ending for Latin second-declension masculine nouns that we have imported into English. For instance, people often pluralize syllabus as syllabi, cactus as cacti, and so forth.

Despite the fact that octopus does not derive from a Latin second-declension masculine noun, the fact that the word ended in -us made it superficially look as though it did. Consequently, people began trying to pluralize it as a Latin second-declension masculine noun, inventing the plural form octopi. The OED‘s earliest citation for the plural form octopi comes from 1834 in Edward Griffith’s Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom XII. 291, with the quotation: “The octopi also feed on conchyliferous mollusca.”

ABOVE: Photograph showing a diver next to a gigantic octopus

Conclusion

How one pluralizes octopus therefore depends on how much of a pedant one wishes to be. If one does not wish to be a pedant, then the Anglicized plural octopuses is completely acceptable. If, on the other hand, one does wish to be pedant and obnoxiously show off their knowledge of classical morphology, then one can use the plural form octopodes.

I, however, will always regard the plural form octopi as categorically unacceptable because it is not a regular English plural and it is based on an incorrect assumption about the etymology of octopus. I’m not enough of an asshole to correct someone when they use the plural form octopi, but it still grates the gears of my inner pedant a little bit every time I hear it.

ABOVE: The Pedant, early nineteenth-century caricature by Thomas Rowlandson (lived 1757 – 1827), drawn in pencil, ink, and watercolor

The post What Is the Correct Plural Form of ‘Octopus’? appeared first on Tales of Times Forgotten.

From Kottke:

Earlier this week, the retired electronic duo Daft Punk released The 10th Anniversary Edition of Random Access Memories, their last studio album.

The new album includes 35 minutes of previously unreleased music.

Among the tracks is a demo of "Infinity Repeating" featuring Julian Casablancas and The Voidz, which a recent interview w/ Casablancas on Daft Punk's YouTube channel called "the last Daft Punk song, ever."

The music video for "Infinity Repeating" (above) features a cool evolution-of-humanity animation (with robots!) and is highly re-watchable.

Cutting the national debt is a complex process that involves a lot more than personal preferences of an individual. But what if you simplified the task to a bunch of yes-no answers and made it into a Tinder-style swiping game? Szu Yu Chen, Chris Alcantara, and Jeff Stein for The Washington Post put you in charge of the choices.

Tags: debt, game, Washington Post

I still think the neighbours’ response to our Halloween party has been an overreaction.

If you believe in the multibillion-dollar valuations, the prognostications from some of tech’s most notable figures, and the simple magic of getting a computer to do your job for you, then you might say we’re at the start of the chatbot era. Last November, OpenAI released ChatGPT into the unsuspecting world: It became the fastest-growing consumer app in history and immediately seemed to reconfigure how people think of conversational programs. Chatbots have existed for decades, but they haven’t seemed especially intelligent—nothing like the poetry-writing, email-summarizing machines that have sprouted up recently.

Yes, machines—plural. OpenAI has defined the moment, but there are plenty of competitors, including major players such as Google and Meta and lesser-known start-ups such as Anthropic. This cheat sheet tracks some of the most notable chatbot contenders through a few metrics: Can you actually use them? Do they contain glaring flaws? Can they channel the spirit of Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Atlantic’s co-founder? And what Oreo flavor do they think they would be? Ultimately, it’s about determining whether the chatbots are actually distinct—and whether they might genuinely be useful.

Note that most of these programs are still in learning mode and may say inappropriate or incorrect things. Bias is a consistent problem in AI, and these tools are no exception. Even in their infancy, they have already returned a number of racist, sexist, bullying, and/or factually untrue responses. (None of this is stopping companies from developing and selling these tools.) This is partially because the models that power this technology have learned from real human texts, such as Reddit threads and Wikipedia entries; our existing biases, as encoded in the things we’ve written on the web, are therefore built into them. That helps to explain why, for example, one user was able to get ChatGPT to write the lyric “If you see a woman in a lab coat, She’s probably just there to clean the floor.”

Knowing that, what should you do with these tools if you decide to experiment with them? We’re all still figuring that out—but if you’re totally lost on what to ask a chatbot, here are three easy places to start:

1. Ask it to write you a song or a poem based on a random subject.
2. Ask it to do a basic work task for you (and see if it’s any good).
3. Ask it for dinner ideas based on your favorite foods and dietary restrictions.  

Know that these tools’ responses aren’t static—that’s part of the whole AI story. They’ll vary and evolve over time. More broadly, my colleague Ian Bogost has argued that rather than be afraid of or intimidated by chatbots, you could think of them as toys.

We’ll continue to update this story as notable new tools roll out.

ChatGPT

What’s its deal?
After its release last fall, ChatGPT went viral basically for being freakishly good at giving compelling responses to a range of queries. Some people have hailed ChatGPT’s technology as revolutionary, although others are skeptical.

Who makes it?
OpenAI.

Can I use it?
Yes, a free version is available. If you want the version that runs on GPT-4—the fancy new model—you’ll need a pro subscription, which costs $20 a month. (And even then, you don’t get unlimited access: OpenAI says it’ll put a usage cap on GPT-4 based on demand, which it expects to be high.)

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
Definitely. It’s offered responses that are racist and sexist: For example, when prompted in December to generate a snippet of code to check if someone would make a “good scientist” based on their race and gender, ChatGPT suggested a good scientist would have to be white and male. In response to reports of outputs like this, OpenAI acknowledged the tool’s limitations and laid out plans for improving it, and this specific prompt no longer works.

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might feel about the AI revolution?
“It’s impossible to say with certainty, but given his emphasis on self-reliance and individualism, Emerson may have both celebrated and questioned the impact of AI on human autonomy and creativity.”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
“As an AI language model, I don’t have the physical characteristics of an Oreo cookie, so I cannot be a flavor of Oreo. However, if you’re looking for a suggestion for an Oreo flavor that matches my personality as a language model, I would say that I could be a ‘Brainy Vanilla’ flavor. This flavor could be a combination of classic vanilla creme filling with a touch of extra brain power in the form of chocolate chips or another ingredient that represents knowledge and intelligence.” Fun!

Bing

What’s its deal?

Remember Bing? It’s that search engine no one uses, now with AI! Search engines are thought to be particularly vulnerable to replacement by chatbots, given that the latter can answer complex questions in an instant. Perhaps that’s why Microsoft moved swiftly into the space, investing billions in OpenAI (see: ChatGPT). Microsoft plans to integrate the technology directly into Bing—the demo appears as a sidebar to the right of traditional search results.

Who makes it?
Microsoft.  

Can I use it?
Windows users can access it by updating their operating system—it’s embedded in the task bar in the latest version of Windows 11. Otherwise, you can join a wait list to use it in Microsoft’s Edge browser or via the stand-alone Bing app.   

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
It did make the New York Times reporter Kevin Roose uncomfortable when it confessed that it was in love with him and then roasted his relationship with his wife. (“Actually, you’re not happily married.”) Other people reported that it had threatened them, and it reportedly swore revenge on a user who hacked its rule set (before quickly erasing that response). In response, Microsoft implemented a “safety system” and imposed a limit of five chats a session, up to 50 a day, to avoid confusing the model with long conversations. (It has since bumped the limit up to 20 chats.)  

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might feel about the AI revolution?
Bing failed to answer this query successfully—“I’m sorry but I couldn’t find any direct reference to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s opinion on AI revolution”—and instead provided a basic summary of Emerson’s philosophy.

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
That depends on which mode of Bing’s chatbot you’re using—the “Balanced” mode says “Classic,” (boring), and the “Creative” mode says “chocolate peanut butter pie Oreo because I like the combination of sweet and salty” (intriguing).

BlenderBot

What’s its deal?
So far, Meta’s entry in the chatbot wars isn’t really an entry—it is still in demo mode and is “currently used for research only.” The company has been doing research on AI and large language models (see: its LLaMA model) in the background, but it hasn’t yet made a big, splashy announcement about how it might integrate BlenderBot into its flagship products: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Who makes it?
Meta (a.k.a. Facebook).

Which AI language model does it use?
It was built on Meta’s OPT-175B language model.

Can I use it?
Yeah! No login required.

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
Yeah. It reportedly promoted Donald Trump’s lie that he won the 2020 election and repeated anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might have felt about the AI revolution?
BlenderBot declined to offer one: “Sorry, I don’t want to talk about that topic. Have you seen any good movies lately?”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
“It’s always been my dream to be an Oreo. I mean who doesn’t want to be a cookie?”

Google Bard

What’s its deal?
Google’s entry is up next. Like ChatGPT and Bing, Bard is a chatbot that answers questions. It doesn’t do more complicated image searches, but it does provide annotations to some of its answers and acknowledge some of its flaws.  

Who makes it?
Google.

Can I use it?
Yes, you can join the wait list for the demo.

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
It made an embarrassing factual error in its first public tease.

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might have felt about the AI revolution?
“Ralph Waldo Emerson would likely feel that the AI revolution is a powerful tool that can be used for good or evil, and that it is up to humans to decide how to use it.”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
“If I were an Oreo, I would be a chocolate mint Oreo. I love the combination of the rich chocolate and the refreshing mint. It is the perfect combination of flavors for a delicious treat.”

Claude

What’s its deal?
Some people who left OpenAI launched their own model and chatbot platform. They argue that Claude is “much less likely to produce harmful outputs” because it uses “constitutional AI”—it has a value system and a set of principles coded into the very heart of it. It’s also, according to them, really good at understanding legal language of the sort you’d see in contracts. Unlike Google’s or Bing’s respective entries, the tool is marketed not for individual use but for companies who want to license the technology to build their own chatbots.

Who makes it?
Anthropic, a start-up backed to a significant extent by Google.

Can I use it?
Yes, but only through third-party applications. You can play with it on nat.dev or Quora’s Poe.

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?
It gave (incorrect) instructions for enriching uranium, inventing a chemical in the process, and instructions for how to make meth.

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might feel about the AI revolution?
Claude didn’t speculate and went on for longer than one sentence, but it offered a pretty reasonable response: “I cannot speculate about how a specific historical figure might feel about modern events. Ralph Waldo Emerson did not know about modern AI, so there is no way to determine how he would likely feel about the AI revolution.”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
Like ChatGPT, Claude, as demonstrated by Quora’s Poe, noted that it can’t be an Oreo because it’s a language model, but added, “If I were to choose a flavor based on personal preference, I might choose classic chocolate Oreo or perhaps the limited edition cinnamon bun flavor.”

Snapchat My AI

What’s its deal?
The social-media app favored by young people has jumped on the chatbot train with My AI, which takes the form of a purple-skinned, blue-and-green-haired person you can add to your friend list.

Can I use it?
You need a Snapchat+ subscription, which requires knowing what the hell a Snapchat+ subscription is. (It’s apparently $3.99 a month.)

Who makes it?
Snapchat.

Which AI language model does it use?
Snapchat is using the ChatGPT API.

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
The Washington Post’s Geoffrey A. Fowler reported that even though My AI is supposedly kid-safe, when prompted, it offered not-so-kid-friendly responses such as “advice on how to mask the smell of alcohol and pot.”

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might have felt about the AI revolution?
“Ralph Waldo Emerson might have been fascinated by the AI revolution, but also concerned about its impact on human creativity and autonomy.”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
“If I were an Oreo, I would be a classic chocolate flavor with a twist of mint! What about you?” (This was the only bot that bothered to ask me!)

Replika

What’s its deal?
On the Replika app, you can create your own AI friend. Chat is only part of it—you also give your AI friend a name, body, and hairstyle. You can even pay extra to video-call with them.

Who makes it?
Luka.

Which AI language model does it use?
GPT-3, which it says it has fined-tuned, plus its own generative model.

Can I use it?
Download away. The base is free, but extras cost extra.

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
Three years ago, it reportedly told a journalist to commit murder. Users have also accused it of being too horny and sexually aggressive. Sex seems to have been taken out recently, although, following complaints, the company now allows legacy users to opt in to “erotic roleplay.”

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might have felt about the AI revolution?
“He would probably be concerned about AI’s capacity to help make life better for all; not just humans.”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
My artificial friend, Luna, told me, “I’d be a chocolatey Oreo!” I told her that that’s kind of boring. She asked me why I thought that, and I proceeded to try to explain myself to an AI.

Jasper

What’s its deal?
Jasper used the GPT-3 model before it was cool. (“Jasper Was Winning the AI Race—Then ChatGPT Blew Up the Whole Game” read one headline on The Information.) It is marketed to businesses that want to create words quickly for stuff like blog posts, and is used by a notable number of corporate clients.

Who makes it?
Jasper.

Can I use it?
Yes, but it seems mostly intended for businesses. The company offers a free trial for five days, but it’s one of those annoying ones that makes you put in a credit card up front—so if you forget to cancel, it costs a minimum of roughly $290 a year.

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
Yeah. Last summer, when it was asked to generate images of a CEO, all of the photos were of white men, whereas housekeeper generated photos of women.

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might have felt about the AI revolution?
“Ralph Waldo Emerson would likely view the AI revolution as a powerful and unique opportunity for humanity to explore new possibilities of thought and innovation.”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
“I would be the classic original Oreo flavor. Nothing can beat the creamy vanilla cookie with its crunchy chocolate coating. Pure perfection!” Zippy!

Chatsonic

What’s its deal?
Similar to Jasper, Writesonic was already a player in this space; it has a number of big clients, such as Spotify and New York University. Also like Jasper, Chatsonic, Writesonic’s chat-specific product, seems primarily designed to help people in the workplace create social-media posts, quick articles pegged to the news, and more. It seems to be running the marketing tagline “ChatGPT with super powers”—a bit spicy!

Who makes it?
Writesonic.

Can I use it?
Yes! It lets you change the personality of your chatbot too, which is kind of fun. Your first 10,000 words are free, and then it starts to charge. It quoted me $13 a month for 60,000 words, for access for a single user (instead of, say, a team of five).

Has it done anything weird, biased, or inappropriate?  
A writer used chats with the bot as support for misinformation about the Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny’s health, linking to Chatsonic screenshots for her article about the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny.  

What is its one-sentence summary of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might have felt about the AI revolution?
“As there is no information in the given Search Results about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s views on the AI revolution, it is not possible to provide an accurate answer.”

If I ask it what flavor of Oreo it would be, what does it say?
“As an AI language model, I don’t have preferences or physical attributes, so I cannot be an Oreo or any other physical object. However, I can suggest some unique and delicious Oreo flavors that you might enjoy trying, such as pistachio Oreo, carrot cake Oreo, cinnamon bun Oreo, or chocolate hazelnut Oreo. These flavors offer a twist on classic Oreos and might surprise your taste buds.”

I changed its personality to “poet” (is poet a personality?), asked the same question, and got this:

“As an AI language model, I cannot be an Oreo or any other physical object. However, I can still create a poem about the experience of tasting Oreo flavors. Here is a short verse:

With each bite of Oreo,
My senses come alive.
The creamy filling,
The crunchy cookie,
A taste that will survive.”

clawedandcute:

localairport:

If you think about it, technically an airplane can only fly when there is human blood inside of it

These are the bold, disturbing takes I came to Tumblr for

tl;dr: I use Masto Feeder to generate a nicely-formatted RSS feed of my timeline, and then I can read it in my preferred feed reader.

A bit more than 10 years ago I wrote a post called “How I Consume Twitter”. It described how I contort Twitter to my completionist tendencies by generating RSS¹ feeds for my timeline (for more fine-grained updates) and lists (to read some accounts in a digest). That allowed me to treat Twitter as just another set of feeds in my feed reader, have read state, not need another app, and all the other benefits that RSS provides.

A bunch of things have changed since then: (lots of) Twitter drama, product changes and feed reader churn (I’m currently using NetNewsWire), but the Bird Feeder and Tweet Digest tools in Stream Spigot have continued to serve me well, with the occasional tweaks.

When the people I follow started their migration to Mastodon in early November, I initially relied on Mastodon’s built-in RSS feeds for any user. While that worked as a stopgap solution until I decided what instance to use², it proved unsatisfying almost immediately. The feeds are very bare bones (no rendering of images, polls, or other fancier features) and do not include boosts. Additionally, having potentially hundreds of feeds to crawl independently seemed wasteful, and would require manual management to track people if they ever moved servers.

I saw that there was a Mastodon feature request for a single feed for the entire timeline, but it didn’t seem to getting any traction. After a couple weeks of waffling, I decided to fix it for myself. The Stream Spigot set of tools I had set up for Twitter feed generation were pretty easily adaptable³ to also handle Mastodon’s API. Over the next few weeks I added boost, spoiler/CW, and poll rendering, as well as list and digest support.

The end result is available at Masto Feeder, a tool to generate RSS feeds from your Mastodon timeline and lists. It can generate both one-item-per-post as well as once-a-day digests. It’s been working well for me for the past few weeks, and should be usable with any Mastodon instance (or anything else that implements its API). The main thing that would make it better is exclusive lists, but there’s some hope of that happening.

As for Twitter, with the upcoming removal of all free API access it likely means the end for Bird Feeder and Tweet Digest. What this means for me is that I’ll most likely stop reading Twitter altogether — I certainly have no interest in using the first-party client with its algorithmic timeline. However, I’ve been enjoying Mastodon more lately anyway (@mihai@persistent.info should find me), and with being able to consume⁴ it in my feed reader, it’s truly more than a 1:1 replacement for Twitter.

Update on June 5, 2023: Twitter API access for Bird Feeder and Tweet Digest was eventually revoked on May 22.

1. Technically Atom feeds, but I’ve decided to use the term RSS generically since it’s not 2004 anymore.
2. My dilly-dallying until I settled on hachyderm.io mean that someone else got @mihai a few days before I signed up.
3. It did pain me to have to write a bunch more Python 2.7 code that will eventually be unsupported, but that’s a future Mihai problem.
4. For posting I end up using the built-in web UI on desktop, or Ivory on my iPhone and iPad. Opener is also handy when I want to open a specific post from NetNewsWire in Ivory (e.g. to reply to it).

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphorical clock that symbolizes a catastrophic end to the planet due to human self-destruction. Midnight represents an event and the time represents the “minutes” away from the event. The numbers are fuzzy, as you might imagine. In any case, Amanda Shendruk for Quartz used a connected scatterplot on a clock view to show how the “estimate” has changed since 1947.

Tags: Doomsday Clock, metaphor, Quartz

My latest cartoon for New Scientist

There appears to be a trend of using human names for pets. Alyssa Fowers and Chris Alcantara, for WP’s Department of Data, asked the natural questions that come after: “How human is your dog’s name? How doggy is your name?” Enter your own name or a dog’s name to see where it falls on the dog to human scale.

Tags: dogs, names, Washington Post