Kicking off the @ceatl.bsky.social AGM 2025 in Krakow.
#lovethytranslator

hear hear

AI haters build tarpits to trap and trick AI scrapers that ignore robots.txt Attackers explain how an anti-spam defense became an AI weapon.

Basically traps AI crawlers and sends them down an "infinite maze" of static files with no exit links, where they get stuck and thrash around for months. Once trapped, the crawlers can be fed gibberish data, aka Markov babble, which is designed to poison AI models arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Years, decades ago, gliding smooth and silent down a late-night Seine-side expressway in a friend of a friend's car, 'The Ballad of Lucy Jordan' on the radio. So long Marianne.

Morning school run. A weary scaffolder mutters loudly up above: “Thank G-d for physics is all I can say!”
@mirandakeeling.bsky.social

Spiteseeing

Explaining the difference to my English-learning student of
Being down on someone &
Going down on someone
#FeckingPhrasalVerbs

Importing the archive:

The New Scientist is the only source of band names you’ll ever need.

#newscientistbandnames

Great selection! And a title from Armenian - my wife will be very happy :)

Sometimes the most useful translation resource is a random friend who knows about car engines/viniculture/nuclear physics etc, to whom you can say, "Hey, does this sound right to you?"

But the payphones!

an orthodox fellow of my acquaintance claims that "copacetic" was borrowed by Italian mobsters from the hebrew "ha'kol beseder," (everything is ok) and from there it filtered into the jazz world. who knows, but it's a good story

Ah, but the sentence continues "...persuade the judges that X, Y, Z."

Ah, the delights of French translation:
"Il est persuadé de réussir à convaincre les juges..."
[literally.: "He is persuaded of being successful of convincing the judges...]
becomes:
"He is convinced that he will be able to persuade the judges..."
#oldswitcheroo #translation #French