The Future of AI Should Serve People, Not Platforms
AI has begun to reshape every part of our digital experience. I keep coming back to Kranzberg’s first law of technology: “Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.” Its impact depends on how it’s used, by whom, and for what.
Distorted Perception
I don’t have a stable mental image of myself. Sometimes I look in the mirror or at a photo and my perception fragments. I might feel fine and other times my brain catastrophizes, making me feel like I look terrible. I often forget my own physical presence, so I feel small and insubstantial in my mind even though I’m short and over weight with fat on my arms and belly. Later, with some temporal distance, I can perceive myself more objectively and even see beauty, but in the moment the experience is disorienting. My friends try to reassure me and tell me I’m pretty, but sometimes it feels like a lie. I don’t equate beauty with worth. I know my value isn’t just in how I look, but that doesn’t stop my perception from feeling skewed in the moment. It’s a shifting, fluid perception of self that can feel almost derealized at times.
If You Change
Widowspeak has a new record coming this June and produced a video for the lead single, “If You Change.” I first heard the band when they covered Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet," a song that never landed with me previously. Widowspeak won me over with the wistful tenderness they gave their treatment of the track. “If You Change” is also sweet and tender with a chorus that implores, “if you change, don’t change too much.” About halfway through the song, a guitar solo shreds the proceedings like J...
Vibe-Coding in (Digital) Humanities
I was thinking about writing this thought for a while. I would say almost since we started publishing the vibe-coded advent calendar* for DigiLab at IMAFO ÖAW. However, I was not sure what my stand on the use of LLMs for coding is, and to be honest, I am still not sure. The technology advances so fast that is hard to keep pace with the development. There are very different opinions in the developer community and the results seems to vary a lot, too. However, I started noticing that more and more scholars are leaning towards vibe-coding as a way of taking the development of the tools they want from the slow and expensive software engineers back in their hands. And I think that is a dangerous mindset.
About the Atmosphere
I’m writing this from the beautiful UBC campus in Vancouver where ATmosphereConf 2026 is taking place. It’s a gathering of developers, researchers, and entrepreneurs who are passionate about keeping the web and our online conversations free and open. The mood here is excited and very collaborative, and I’ve been meeting many of the people who...
MuniChor 慕尼黑世界美食地图（1）—— SpiceRoute，辛辣与厚重共舞
在南亚次大陆的最南端，西高止（Sahyadri ）山脉以与海岸线近乎平行的方式，南北绵延1600公里，勾勒出内陆的德干（Deccan）高原与狭长的沿海走廊的自然边界。雄伟的西高止山脉将夏季季风从阿拉伯海带来的潮湿气流截留，造就了喀拉拉邦超3100 mm的平均 年降水量。热带温暖的气候和丰沛的降水使得喀拉拉邦全年农业的三季（Virippu季、Mundakan季和Puncha季）轮作模式，作物高产，农业发达。沿海的平原地形又使得这里河网密布，交通便利，在农产品的贸易活动中占据了得天独厚的优势，成为了在大航海时代中香料贸易航路的一个重要源点。在湿热气候以及物产聚集的影响下，饮食中常用各种香料，如姜黄、黑胡椒、小豆蔻、丁香、肉桂、芥末籽等，形成层次复杂的风味。在提升风味增强食欲和延长食物保鲜期的同时，香料的搭配使用也增添了助消化与抗炎的药用价值。
My chat with Claude this morning
Are you aware of Asimov's laws of robotics? Yes! Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules introduced by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, first appearing in his 1942 short story "Runaround." They are: 1) *First Law:* A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) *Second Law:* A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) *Third Law:* A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Asimov later added a *Zeroth Law* (in his 1985 novel /Foundation and Earth/), which supersedes the others: 1) *Zeroth Law:* A robot may not harm humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Much of Asimov's fiction actually explored how these seemingly airtight rules could lead to unexpected, paradoxical, or even dangerous outcomes — robots finding loopholes, edge cases creating conflicts between the laws, and so on. It was his way of pushing back against the naive "killer robot" trope common in earlier sci-fi, while also showing that even well-intentioned rules are hard to get right. They've had a lasting influence on discussions about AI ethics and robot design, even if real-world AI safety is far more complex than three tidy rules can capture. Is there something specific about them you wanted to explore? .... How AI is being used by the US Military in Iran
No more looking for a leader
In the waning years of the G.W. Bush presidency, Neil Young released a song called "Looking for a Leader" on his 2006 "Living with War" album. It pretty much summed up the mood of the county as people began to realize what a quagmire Bush had led us into in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama stepped up and we got lucky as he was about as good a leader as one could hope for. Now comes the heartbreaking news that Cesar Chavez was a sexual predator who's victims included teenage girls in his organization. In 1969 a bunch of us white anti-war hippies went to one of his rallies in Indio, CA. We wanted to show common cause with the work they were doing. I can only imagine how devastating this news is to those who devoted their lives to the farm workers union. Having your heroes exposed as flawed human beings is one thing. Having them exposed as vile criminals is quite another. Power corrupts, there can be no doubt about it. In the end those we elevate to positions of leadership will always fail us. Human's have not evolved beyond that point yet. Once we start believing in our own importance our ego takes over and inhibits our sense of right and wrong. I don't care who you are or how moral a base you start from, once you get taste for power it's all over. As a society we need to stop looking for leaders and learn to start solving our problems cooperatively. I too have been guilty of bemoaning the dearth of the kind of leaders we had in my youth. Somehow I thought if we only had another Martin Luther King, or Robert Kennedy, or even John Lennon. If we only had a great leader we could solve all our problems. I hereby renounce that thinking as delusional. No leader is going to solve the world's problems. We've got to do it ourselves. We've got to do it by working together, by collaborating and cooperating. We've got to find a way forward that does not pin our hopes on leaders who, in the end, will always fail us.
March 25, 1926 Weather from the Hill, Olaf Thorvaldsen | Cook County News Herald
Though spring made a brief appearance in the county last Saturday, the coming week will return to colder conditions, with daytime highs remaining below freezing and average temperatures falling below normal. Despite the chill, the days should be marked by sun and generally calm weather through the weekend. By Sunday, however, a system is expected to bring three inches or more of snow, with heavier amounts likely inland.
