I assumed Ed was thinking of Luc Julia, who has built a career as media pundit and expert witness on the back of wildly exaggerated claims about his involvement in the development of Siri, and frequently claims to be widely considered the godfather of AI.

Lots of European cities dismantled their tram or trolley networks post-WWII and only recently started rebuilding them.

And I shall never give thou up, let thee down, run around or hurt thee

-- Saints Michael, Matthew and Peter speaking through St. Richard, 87:07

... they're all good girls?

dog girl like horse girl or dog girl like cat girl

Exactly one year ago today:

_glances nervously at passport_

Are we gendering inanimate objects and abstract concepts now?

not to mention casting Bryan Cranston just to ride on the coattails of Breaking Bad!

*sigh*
If your Kickstarter video/image is AI, I won't back it.
If your book has an AI cover, I won't read it.
If you're a public supporter of AI use for creative work, I will unfollow you.
I cannot stress enough how offensive I find AI use in the arts. It is outright theft, it is lazy, it is gross.

(and almost by definition, the Celts would not have had any legends about the longevity of England, Land of the Angles, the Germanic tribes who displaced the Celts six hundred years before the Tower was built)

The Celts missed the Tower by at least six hundred years, and there is no record of any such legend until the 1880s.

I have a theory that several of Ursula's protagonists (not all, but several, and definitely Anja and Halla) are, basically, Ursula. She seems like a nice person.

I need to correct my own alt text here: the image is centered on the “Module Sportif”, the building that houses Race Control. The lot where the medical center now stands is just to the south of it, below the pin that says “Centre Médical Piste”.

To be clear, I have no reason to believe that anything nefarious is going on. It's just odd.

I'm not sure what to think of this. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that these images were taken in the last week of May or first week of June of a year no later than 2022. Yet the copyright statement at the bottom stubbornly insists that the images are from 2026.

Screenshot from Google Maps: overhead view of the Porsche curve (turn 30). County road D139 crosses the image diagonally from lower right to upper left. The track splits off from the D139 and curves toward the upper right of the image. In the split between the two is a gravel pit. To the right is the Beauséjour campground and marshals post 30, to the left is the site of the Porsche hospitality zone and marshals post 30B. Both sites are completely deserted. A work crew is busy laying out a white stencil spelling out PORSCHE in the grass on the inside (right-hand side) of the turn, across from the hospitality zone.

Further south, we see a work crew painting the Porsche logo in the grass at the Porsche curve, so we know it is late May or early June, shortly before the 24 Hours. There is no sign of activity at the marshals posts (30 / 30B), so we're still several days out from Test Day. The date still says 2026.

Screenshot from Google Maps: overhead view centered on the location of the trackside medical center, which is missing from the picture. We see numerous trailers, tents, and other temporary structures set up in the paddock, and tractor-trailer units lined up on the pit lane straight, suggesting that a race is either about to take place or has recently taken place.

If we zoom in further, we see a vacant lot where the medical center is now. We also see a lot of activity in the paddock and pits, suggesting that this was taken shortly before or after a major race. The date still says 2026.

Screenshot from Google Maps: overhead view of the Circuit Bugatti with Arnage airport and the Le Mans exhibition center to the west and the Stade Marie-Marvignt, Antarès Arena, the velodrome, and the hippodrome (incorrectly labeled “Sports Field”) to the east.

Now if we zoom in on the Bugatti, we immediately see a problem. There is no sign of the hotel currently under construction at Tertre Rouge, or of the expanded museum, or of the new entrance (Porte Sud) completed in 2024, or of the trackside medical center completed in 2023. The date still says 2026.

Screenshot from Google Maps: satellite view of the Circuit de la Sarthe south of Le Mans, France. Just north of the center of the image are a horse-racing track (the Hippodrome du Mans) and the Circuit Bugatti, the motorsports venue which forms part of the Circuit the la Sarthe, where the 24 Hours of Le Mans are held each year in June. To the west is a small regional airport, Le Mans Arnage, then a sorting yard and a large industrial zone. The village of Arnage is in the lower left of the image. Ruaudin is in the middle of the right edge. Mulsanne is off the bottom right. Le Mans proper is out of frame to the north.

Now let's return to the overhead view and move south. This is the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe, with the Circuit Bugatti in the northwest corner, and the Hippodrome du Mans, where Wilbur Wright demonstrated the Wright Flyer in 1908, just north of the center. The date says 2026.

Screenshot from Google Maps: Google Street View image of a row of houses on a residential street in Le Mans, France, with a black Audi A4 Avant parked out front.

See for instance this Street View image of a house in Le Mans. It says June 2022, and I know that's correct, because that's my car parked out front. I was renting it at the time. You can tell it's a Wednesday because the recycling bin is out; I think it was the 15th.

Here's another Google Maps oddity.

If you look at Satellite view or Street view, you can see when the imagery was captured in the bottom right. In Street view this is also shown in an infobox on the left, which also lets you select older images if any exist.

Nordic, not Scandinavian

oh hey trees are fucking in my sinuses again

Just got an email from Google that an edit I submitted to Google Maps a few weeks ago has been accepted.

Except the edit that was accepted is not the one I sent in. They've deleted a different road than the one I reported, a hundred meters further south. A road that very much still exists.

_sigh_

Perso A : le problème avec les anti-IA, c'est qu'on peut pas avoir de discussion argumentée avec eux Perso B : OK, c'est quoi tes arguments ? Perso A : Ben que l'IA existe, alors autant l'utiliser. Silence.

It's (not) funny because it's true.

Have they forgotten what happened the last time the US tried to land cargo planes in Iran?

I searched "data center coloring book" because I was trying to decide if I should make one and found this, from a power management company, and I don't think I can top this www.eaton.com/explore/_pfc...

Bread. Twine. Cloth.

Is it still possible to order a copy? I backed the first book back in 2013, but I didn't hear about this one until it recently and I can't find anything about it online.