You don't care if it's wrong or if it's right

Put on the red light, Ro.

PS - Bonus trivia: Stewart Copeland is son of CIA officer, Miles Copeland, Jr.

The Capricious Cosmos

A Man Said to the Universe:

A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

Stephen Crane.

The Measure of a Model

"Being open to the possibility that LLMs are conscious is the same as being open to the possibility that Microsoft Word is conscious...Contemplating that scenario is not a good use of your time."

excellent Ted Chiang essayhttps://t.co/nkPiah2oDv

— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) June 3, 2026

I particularly like this bit from early in the article:

"Should we seriously consider the possibility that Claude, or any large language model, might be conscious? And if it has feelings, is it capable of receiving moral instruction?

No. Absolutely not. Generative AI is harmful enough when we understand it as a conventional technology, but if we confuse fluency at generating text with consciousness or moral agency, we're at risk of assigning responsibility to entirely the wrong parties whenever anyone uses a chatbot. To appreciate the titanic magnitude of this error, we need to begin by understanding how LLMs work."

My emphasis added.  Anyway, I got you covered on how LLMs work.

While I absolutely object to the notion that Commander Data is a toaster, what we currently have in the real 21st century clearly is no more sentient or conscious than any common appliance.  I wish people would think more criticially about what they're saying regarding these tools, and the attendant moral/ethical implications.

Selah.

PS - I also got you covered if you can't get by the paywall.

You pay the prophets to justify your reasons

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!

I Can See Through the Clouds

A Short Story of Falling:

It is the story of the falling rain

to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower

to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary

that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water's wishes and this tale

hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass

as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip

turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance

the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong

and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue

to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain

that rises to the light and falls again

Alice Oswald. 

#throwbackthursday

Wow, crazy.

From the drone archives: Blake Island, the Cathlamet arriving at the North Terminal, and the Emerald City. (2020)

I Am a Camera

Into the Lens, not to be confused with the Buggles' version.


I do like both, but unsurprisingly, Trevor Horn and I have different preferences (I am inclined toward the more proggy orchestrated Yes track over the hauntingly ethereal Buggles offering).  And I notice there apparently was no time for wardrobe changes, which I find kinda funny given the Ship of Theseus nature of the band in later years...

Escaping the Matrix

Telephone Booth (number 905 1/2):

woke up this morning

feeling excellent,

picked up the telephone

dialed the number of

my equal opportunity employer

to inform him I will not

be into work today

Are you feeling sick?

the boss asked me

No Sir I replied:

I am feeling too good

to report to work today,

if I feel sick tomorrow

I will come in early

Pedro Pietri.

You're the magnet to my soul

The 2002 show we attended was during the Magnification tour, so here's the title song.  

That was the last Yes album I bought, in point of fact.  It's fine; better than the previous half dozen from where I sit.  I do like The Quest (2021), and have even blogged a couple tracks from it, but I just stream these days.

Lebensmagnetismus

The Moon’s Magnetic Field Once Came from an Asteroid:

When you walked in

it was like recognizing

 

the moon when he returns.

His lover bites his cheek; she

 

has no choice. All we see

is the dissolution, then await

 

the reconstruction.

Each time, the sky

 

yanks her into his orbit.

I want to say I’m sorry.

 

I want to say

You win. Our bodies are like

 

the confessional booth these

poems are stuck in. Even

 

the priest can see that sin.

You’ll be all spit and honey—

 

or maybe I’m the poisoned

flower gnawing on its own

 

lip because it has no hands

to reach for you. Only words

 

that are as useless as the pollen

for saying anything. I continue

 

to serve them even with your hands

around my throat from across

 

the room. Your voice is home,

I answer it like a bat guided

 

across the atmosphere. This

is a narrative that cannot end

 

well but wants to, but must.

I’ll continue to go down kicking

 

and you’ll be sweet as anything

until you bite back. No, it can’t

 

end here—we won’t let it.

Billions of years have passed

 

since an asteroid last hit

the moon: clearly some

 

magnetic fields can be sustained.

Rebecca Morgan Frank.