Tracking Wikipedia … so the barbarians don't win
Play the game and buy rice to feed the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freerice
The difficulty seems to increase as you answer more questions. Before, it was just one page, but now they have more levels you can choose. It’s kind of relaxing, like Tetris, (which I have a link in the sidebar, because it’s for trauma), except that you are also doing something about world hunger at the same time.
Seems to be going viral.
Not AI.
It is Trump’s shark rant.
YouTube version
What is “kooshie”?
Sushi? Kootchie? Anything?
The free 3G that comes with the blog are now used up. This is not 3G per year, or per 5 years or whatever, it is 3G for all time. It has taken me 10 years to use it up (has it been that long already?), so as a temporary solution I will start deleting stuff.
For instance the post “Albert György and Melancolie“, a popular statue by a Romanian artist, gets a huge number of page hits, but what do I want it for here? It should be on Wikipedia, but no one has put it there, and it is not really one of my usual topics, which is to bring neglected women forward. So maybe that one could go.
The Wikipedia-specific posts should probably be kept.
I have discovered a way to determine whether a particular image is being used on any post, so first I will begin to find and delete unused images. Then we will see where we stand.
This is to track deletions, starting with the earliest uploads. I suppose I could keep the list in the back room, in a draft, but it might be better to have it in plain view, where I can work on it little by little.
Replace popcorn images with: popcorn-icon125px1.png or popcorn-icon100px.png ✅
Maybe there should be a list for red links too
For deletion?
Last night I found some Thai pepper plants and was carrying them home on the bus when a lady on the bus told me about “angel numbers”. You can google it, she said, and it will tell you the meaning of the numbers.
An “angel number” is when you keep seeing the same number all the time, like 333 on your phone, on a clock, on the time stamp of a playlist, on a receipt.
Now if you flip three coins enough times, sooner or later you will probably come up with all head or all tails. This is just basic probability. But for some people, the universe is not random, it is filled with meaning, and these numbers are messages from angels, or from the universe, which is surrounding you with love and support. “Everything happens for a reason”, they will tell you, and often the reasons are available for a small fee, or even a large one.
So if you are thinking of going down this rabbit hole, here are some basics.
The term “angel numbers” was coined by Californian author, pen name Doreen Virtue, who wrote Angel Numbers and several more books on the topic before converting to Roman Catholicism and renouncing her previous work.
It was apparently Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher, who originated the belief that the universe was controlled by numbers. Doreen Virtue claimed in her books to have been a student of Pythagoras in a previous life, and to receive all her information directly from spirits she could talk to and question.
Doreen Virtue’s writing in turn was based on an earlier writer, L. Dow Balliett (1847 – 1929), a New Jersey socialite and the author of The Philosophy of Numbers: Their Tone and Colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._L._Dow_Balliett This whole thing is a branch of numerology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerology#Angel_numbers
But why now? Why on the bus?
This is all being spread by Instagram and TikTok, specifically Witchtok, Astrologytok and Manifestationtok. The more videos you watch, the more their algorithms serve up more similar videos, until finally you are seeing nothing but videos about how to cast spells, and “manifest” things to appear in real life through mental exercises.
There is also something called “twin flames”, which are similar to soul mates, but there is only one, and it is either exactly the same as yourself or exactly the opposite, depending on who you ask. When you start seeing certain “angel numbers”, it means either that you are about to meet your “twin flame” or your “twin flame” is nearby and you should look around or something. There is more anecdotal stuff about how these “twin flame” relationships can be a roller coaster, or even toxic, but I will leave that rabbit hole for others. Something occurs to me here about ‘healthy boundaries’, which you can also google, but which is more fun and interesting, a twelve-step program or magic?
Okay, now I will try to manifest some Thai peppers in my garden and maybe un-manifest the rats.
“Can Multi-Modal LLMs Transcribe Historic Documents?”
“Recently, both OpenAI and Google released new multi-modal large language models, where were immediately touted for their ability to transcribe documents.
“Also last week, I transcribed this document from the Library of Virginia’s collection from the Virginia Revolutionary Conventions. …
“This may ring a bell for some of you.
“One of the central controversies of the New York Times’ 1619 Project involves the assertion that the Americans declared their independence in reaction to a rising Abolitionist sentiment in Britain, which threatened to end slavery.
“This claim was disputed by socialist and conservative historians, but the discussion revolves around documents like the one we just read: colonists reacting against Lord Dunmore’s proclamation that enslaved and indentured servants joining his forces would be freed.”
The author compares his own human transcription to Transkribus’s English Eagle transformer model and to ChatGPT.
“The Transkribus output is obviously raw, and in need of correction. It looks tentative when you read it in isolation. The ChatGPT output looks much more plausible, and–in my opinion–that plausibility is treacherous.
“LLMs are good at detecting subjects-like mention of slavery–in texts. I asked that question here, and the result speaks for itself.”
UPDATE: two ferries that carry military supplies are disabled sunk, KS-701 “Tuna” /”Tunets” coast guard patrol boats (?), also a building belonging to Kerch bridge administration, a guard/ pilot boat(s) (?), a rail line, also, in the early morning, an oil storage at Taman on the Russian side of the bridge. (See below)
(The pundits do not think the actual bridge will be attacked until the F-16s are in place.)
Footage from sea drones:
Special Kherson Cat (thread with video):
A busy night/ early morning. Are these ex-ships?
from Astra telegram channel
Also “Dream”, «Мечта»
sank, no casualties https://t.me/astrapress/56564
“On October 28, 2021 , it was reported that the Azov-Chernomorsky Basin Branch of FSUE Rosmorport acquired the pilot boat Mechta. The Project 1459 boat was manufactured in 1985 at the Leningrad Shipyard “Pella” and became the 7th pilot vessel of the branch.
According to open data, the Mechta boat is a steel single-deck vessel with a ledge at the bow, a single-tier wheelhouse and a stern-mounted diesel engines. As the press service of FSUE “Rosmorport” reported, pilot boats of this project can be operated in winter conditions with a thickness of broken ice no more than 30 cm.
Red link, for Project 1459 boats, see
damaged.
one crew member Roman Stas injured; he is undergoing surgery
Probably Project CNF06,
ran aground due to damage
4 people injured, including 19-year-old trainees Daniil V. and Nikita Sh
Probably Project CNF06,
4 transport landing boats KS 701 damaged, 2 already reported destroyed to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
~~~
more video
20 explosions reported by locals
“we are scared” they say
Everyone is posting the song.
Okay , back to what I was doing before, which was browsing Olaus Magnus’s wonderful Scandinavian map from 1539, Carta Marina, with all the sea monsters.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_03037/?r=0.361,-0.001,0.268,0.128,0
It was a companion to his 1555 Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, with the famous woodcuts of 16th century Swedish life, and especially the Christmas and winter traditions. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/64647 https://archive.org/details/Historiaedegent00Olau/page/n11/mode/thumb https://blog.library.si.edu/blog/2016/12/19/wondrous-winter-wonderland-16th-century-sweden/
This was a comic book in the 70s.
I’m getting really triggered by Splinter, though, I’ve got rats in the garden.
First season: Teenage mutant ninja turtles (1987):
The turtles show up at April’s place with pizza (4 minutes):
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax (legal name Dennis George Lomax) died April 12, 2024. This was announced on Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Quraniyoon/comments/1c5b1rd/abd_ulrahman_daniel_lomax_uabdlomax_passed_from/
I have also confirmed this with someone who knew him, and who was in touch with his family, and was very helpful when Abd disappeared before, and was later found out to have been in the hospital.
[Note: this seems to be a somewhat more official announcement. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/dennis-lomax-obituary?id=54921388 archived https://archive.is/7nraw and https://www.nefcc.net/obituaries/Dennis-Lomax-2/#!/Obituary archived https://archive.is/Z4ZYi ]
At that time I also found out some little-known information about Abd.
Abd was one of the original students of Murshid Samuel Lewis in San Francisco in the 60s. For about a year, he was Lewis’s personal secretary and at that time played guitar for the Dances of Universal Peace led by Lewis. Abd was mentioned in the book Murshid a personal memoir of life with American Sufi Samuel L. Lewis by Mansur Johnson. He is listed in the index as “Daniel (Lomax) (Abdul-rahman)” and “Daniel (Lomax): (aka Abdul-rahman) a disciple, b. 1944; one of Murshid’s secretaries.” (screenshot below)
There is a 1970 video of “Murshid Sam” Lewis at a festival (in San Francisco?) here, the guitar player in the background does not look much like Abd, at least in his later years, although it’s not really in focus. Maybe by that time Abd was already in Tucson, and the guitar player in the video is someone else.
For this branch of Sufism, see
For those who have never heard Abd’s voice, I have found an archived recording, thanks to the Wayback Machine.
Parting thought: a Sufi dance by Sam Lewis at a 2015 event in Arizona.
For anyone who would like to leave a comment for friends and family, I will leave the post open for a few days.
~~~~
I almost forgot to mention his daughter Zippy, who is a talented photographer. I have been following her Facebook off and on, but didn’t want to say anything before for fear she would be harassed. She has been battling cancer and is finally starting to recover. Some of her photographs documenting her medical progress on Facebook are quite moving (and devastating). She has a book, Dusty PlayGround by Zipporah Lomax, featuring portraits of children at Burning Man, and a go-fund-me for her medical expenses.
The map is interactive. You click on a point on the map and it gives you the times for the eclipse. The eclipse is Monday April 8, 2024.
Did you ever make a pinhole projector for watching an eclipse when you were a kid?
This is how it works:
“Aber obgleich die Unrichtigkeit der obigen Angaben nachgewiesen ist, werden sie immer wieder verbreitet.”
(But even though the inaccuracy of the above information is demonstrated, it will be disseminated all over again.) -Friedrich Jehle, 1908
This is a postscript to “Fair are the meadows”. https://genderdesk.wordpress.com/2024/03/25/fair-are-the-meadows/
It occurred to me that the above quotation attributed to Friedrich Jehle might be even more interesting in the original German. So I went looking for it.
The tome we are looking for is: Friedrich Jehle, Monatsschrift für Gottesdienst und kirchliche Kunst, 1908 p.251. A thumbnail of the page, in all its glorious font, is in the upper right corner.
The most obvious place to start is with the Wayback people at the Internet Archive. Sure enough, there it is. But when you try to plug that archaic font (what is it, fraktur?) into google translate, what a disaster. Some texts look weird, but some reason, google can still read them. Not this one.
What about Google books? They have it, but you can’t copy-paste or use translation tools. (search terms “Kreuzfahrerlied” and “Schönster herr jesu”)
So, onward and upward. Hathitrust has several copies. Since we have the page number for a specific year, let’s look at those first. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008699537
The second try yields this: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433082189618&seq=1
Eureka! There it is. An internal search (search term “Schönster herr jesu”) shows the entire text in German. Then, all you do is, in the Chrome browser, find it in English, and click back to German.
Here’s another great quote from that page, “Unrichtige Angaben, die in solchen Sammlungen ſich finden, verbreiten sich dadurch unausrottbar im Volk. (Incorrect information found in such collections spreads ineradicably among the people.) Probably the other way around, but whatever.
Oh, and Friedrich Jehle (1844 – 1941) is a red link in English.
And the women? The wife of his grandson Martin Friedrich Jehle (1914-1982), Hanna Jehle (1916 – 1997) (red link) was a (now published) writer of poetry: Gedichte. https://explore.gnd.network/gnd/134278518 Poems listed here, in German. https://www.eppler-jehle.de/10712.html
Gender Desk 