In the latest iOS update typing Jerusalem into the emoji search field suggested the use of the Palestinian flag. As both Palestine and Israel claim the city as their capital a lot of people were not happy.
This was apparently an error that will be fixed in an upcoming iOS update.
That’s because LLMs need really good data to train off of, and while the internet has a lot of data, it also has a lot of the Livejournal posts I wrote in 2003 that no one should be training anything they want to be coherent on.
This Wall Street Journal piece explores the way AI companies on beginning to reckon with a potential shortage of data to train on. Apparently it could mean a lot fewer “do anything” enormous LLMs and a lot more models trained for specific tasks on specific data sets. The people using LLMs trained on my Livejournal probably appreciate that.
Maybe it’s because I relocated to New Jersey, but its increasingly clear that transportation apps and APIs in most of the US kind of suck. Apparently, New Jersey Transit has a gnarly one.
But thankfully the PATH, an inexpensive commuter rail that runs between New York and New Jersey, has a robust enough API to make up for its often buggy app. That’s meant one developer has built a very handy app and widget that gives you exactly what you need: an easy to read train schedule.
Often times for me try to troubleshoot an Apple device rarely leads me to the actual Apple website. Ifixit, Reddit and Apple forums unaffiliated with the company are often a better bet for getting a clear understanding of how Apple’s products actually work and can be repaired.
Which is wild! Users shouldn’t have to rely on a big third party ecosystem just to figure out how to fix a key on their keyboard. But as the right to repair movement gains momentum Apple has gotten a better at providing documentation. Now it’s launched a whole new section filled with tech specs and documentation of devices going back over thirty years. The documentation gets less robust the further back you go, but this is still a very welcome change.
According to Hellgate the organization sent the subpoena to X in an effort to gather as much information about the X user and his account as possible and asked the company not to tell the guy about the subpoena.
X told him anyways and also suggested he get a lawyer, which he promptly did. Now the NYPD has withdrawn the administrative subpoena rather than try and justify it in a court. It’s unclear how frequently the NYPD has gone after watchdogs and reporters using these subpoenas but this is at least the second time in four years.
Yikes.
Kate Middleton is now claiming she likes to dabble in photo editing, just like those of us who don’t have a large professional staff employed just to maintain one’s image.
I guess we’re supposed to infer she edited yesterday’s badly ‘shopped photo herself, and if that’s the case, there’s a few Photoshop tutorials I can point her towards.
Criterion has a 24-hour flash sale. That means everything in stock is 50 percent off.
Having spent more money than I want to publicly admit on these sales in the past I can confirm they’re great. And given the state of digital media it’s always nice to have pristine physical copies of movies you love.
Personally, I’m grabbing the double feature of The Heroic Trio and Executioners starring a baby Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung ,and Anita Mui. It’s a goofy and delightfully good time.
Duh, it’s related to the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise!
But over at Polygon Matt Patches spoke to the people who crafted the Racebending campaign that called out the original film’s too white casting and created a word that is now a permanent fixture in fandom lexicon.
It’s a captivating piece that highlights just how much things have improved in ten years, how much further we have to go, and how much fans can actually make a difference.
