Legacy says more about the people doing the remembering than it does about the people or events being remembered, which is also true of things on the right or wrong side of history – such judgements say more about the people doing the judging than about what they are judging.
Addendum to “Linguistics, LLMs, and Empiricism’s Dangers”
Fedorenko asserts that the part of the human brain solely responsible for language itself does not actually understand that language.
Comment Opportunity – NASA Technology Shortfalls
NASA is working on updating the shortfalls list, and they’ve changed the format in a way that maintains the detail while eliminating some of the overlaps and providing a higher-level basis for the ranking of shortfalls against each other.
The History of English (Podcast) Recommendation
Begun in 2012, the podcast is a history podcast about the English language, although it takes dozens of episodes for the host, Stroud, to reach the advent of the oldest English dialects from the start of the proto-Indo-European language.
Linguistics, LLMs, and Empiricism’s Dangers
This word “understanding” is being used to examine a broader, more philosophical question of motivation, of trying to parse why the LLMs respond to queries in the ways they do, but today’s, and the foreseeable future’s worth of tomorrow’s, LLMs don’t have motivation in the human sense.
Saving Your Darlings
To kill your darlings means, during the revision process, to take a hard look at the parts of the story you're particularly passionate about, but which may not serve the overall plot/character/story, and cut them.
Trapped in Silk Slippers
Bemoaning the indulgence and laxity of the present in comparison to a more arduous, hardworking past is a time-honored tradition.
Regolith as a Material Resource Priority
Structural materials like regolith should be prioritized, followed by water from which both propellant and life support can be derived.
Reference Frames
An appropriate choice of reference frame will make things far simpler, while a poor choice of reference frame can make the situation dramatically more complicated.
An Interstellar Interloper
Any spacecraft wishing to rendezvous with 3I/ATLAS will need to match its velocity, and hyperbolic interstellar trajectories are fast. I did some quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations to find just how fast.
IGC Publishing 