The leading AI models are now very good historians

The headaches that LLMs have caused in the classroom are (I believe) more than counterbalanced by what they can offer as tools for research and self-directed learning. For this reason, I’m now even more optimistic about the long-term impact and utility of AI tools for historical research — and, by extension, for other forms of text or image-based research.

The abuse of the scientific method in so-called alternative medicine – The Skeptic

To accuse anyone of an abuse of science is by no means a trivial charge. In the case of proponents of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), the accusation seems, however, often justified. Let me explain this by using the example of chiropractors (I could have chosen homeopaths, faith healers, acupuncturists or almost any other type of SCAM practitioner).

The Alpha Myth: How Captive Wolves Led Us Astray

In 1947, at Switzerland’s Basel Zoo, animal behaviorist Rudolf Schenkel peered into an enclosure of captive wolves, meticulously documenting their interactions. What he witnessed – aggressive displays of dominance, rigid hierarchies, the emergence of an “alpha” male – would spawn decades of misunderstanding about power, leadership, and masculinity. His observations were later popularized by biologist L. David Mech in his influential 1970 book, “The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species,” cementing the alpha wolf concept in both scientific literature and popular imagination.

I Tried Putting my Fluid Simulation on a Planet

Alles van Sebastian Lague is de moeite waard om te bekijken. Dit is ook weer fantastisch — zet uw Youtube wel
best op 4K.

Researchers just discovered an entirely new class of life living inside humans

The human body is an amazing, curious, and disgusting thing. At any given moment, millions of tiny lifeforms are making their way across your body—both inside and out. And now, researchers say they’ve discovered an entirely new class of life within the human body, the digestive system, to be exact. These new life forms are called Obelisks, and researchers say that they first believed they might be viruses.

The Art of Dithering and Retro Shading for the Web – Maxime Heckel’s Blog

A detailed walkthrough of the inner workings of dithering and other shading techniques to give a retro look and feel to your WebGL and React Three Fiber work.

Markdown’s Big Brother: Say Hello to AsciiDoc | Tower Blog

Nostalgie! Ik heb eigenlijk zeer graag met AsciiDoc gewerkt, in den tijd.

Exciting news from Scroll 5! – Vesuvius Challenge

For the past several months, our team and community have been working hard on ink detection and segmentation of P.Herc.

Alan Turing’s Secret “Delilah” Project – IEEE Spectrum

Delilah was Turing’s portable voice-encryption system, named after the biblical deceiver of men. Delilah was Turing’s portable voice-encryption system, named after the biblical deceiver of men.

The familiar loneliness of the Kinetoscope

There’s a deeper resonance between the 1890s and the 2020s that has gone largely unnoticed: both decades witnessed the emergence of a new kind of technological loneliness.

When we think of media and technology in the 1890s, certain images come to mind: the yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst, muckrakers exposing runaway corporate power, the serialized novels of H.G. Wells. All were part of a surge in mass communication. The decade was, after all, the golden age of the periodical.

But the most prophetic media innovation of that decade was something less familiar. It was the Kinetoscope: the world’s first commercial motion picture device.

Mitochondria as you’ve never seen them — January’s best science images

Zoals altijd fantastisch, de maandelijkse best of weteschapsfoto’s van Nature.

What really happens inside a dating app – My blog

I have been working inside a dating app for a few months and there are a lot of interesting things. This article is going to be without any structure as there are many things to say.

I will mostly ignore homosexual interactions. Not because they don’t exist, just because it works very differently than heterosexual ones. The likelihood to like and exchange inside homosexual groups is much higher than in heterosexual ones. Which makes creating a dating app for homosexuals something almost without product challenges (other challenges yes, but not product).

The Secrets of Grim’s Ditch

“Grim’s Ditch” is eigenlijk “de dijk van Odin” wegens Grim andere naam voor Odin. Maar de Grim’s Ditchen zij er van ver vóór de Romeinen en dus ook de Saksen. Zo wijs!

Ik had eigenlijk archeoloog willen zijn. 🙂