Learning about prompt engineering for AIs. Here's an interesting (and surprising to me) conversation start with Claude:
You are a tutor of the Māori language. Ask me how I am today.
Kia ora! Kei te pēhea koe i tēnei rā?
Putting aside all politics, and purely on a mechanical level, how does anyone cause a pager to explode by remote control? I totally don't understand this at all.
eight people were killed and 2750 wounded in the pager explosions
Via: At least 8 dead, thousands wounded as pagers explode in Lebanon | RNZ News.
Today we needed this info: Restart Apple Watch:
Force Apple Watch to restart
Do this only if you’re unable to restart your Apple Watch.
To force restart, hold down the side button and the Digital Crown at the same time for at least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
It took me a long time to get into this book — I put it down several times to read others — but towards the end I kept reading late to learn the outcome. Lest Bridges Burn (DS Liz Moorland. Major Crimes. Book 2) by Phillipa Nefri Clark. 📚
May well not read more, unless the price drops.
A year or two back someone I follow on Micro.Blog mentioned Logseq for notes etc. My curiosity piqued, I installed and have been using it since.
As I come to understand more and more of its features I love it more too.
Alan Young has a superb YouTube Channel with clear and helpful info.
I'd like to remind folks updating their Apple devices today of the most excellent Take Control Books – Expert Advice from Leading Tech Authors. Worth every penny. For example:
Take Control of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 and
Take Control of Sequoia.
Read as PDF or ePub.
After an interesting chat today with a friend I decided to learn more about AI. There are interesting free videos around, like these:
Huh! Making a hash of it: The lowdown on Inland Revenue and your data:
The encrypted details of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers are being given by Inland Revenue to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google for targeted advertising - but how good is the encryption? …
"So if I click on the IRD 'sort out your income tax debt' advert, that is logged ... giving information to Meta that, for instance, I am likely to have an income tax debt is pretty sensitive stuff.
"This is in a different league from Meta knowing that I am a fan of, say, popular science books."
AI for the good of NZ birds
How artificial intelligence may help NZ birds | RNZ News:
A study to identify individual kākā using AI has received a funding boost of $1 million, one of a number of research projects using artificial intelligence "for good". …
The project began with photographs taken in nesting boxes at Zealandia, perfectly set up to allow snapshots of the birds heads in profile while they fed.
They were now achieving 90 to 95 percent accuracy with this method, Lensen said, but in a surprise twist, the AI was using posture rather than beaks, which the team had initially thought would be easiest, to tell birds apart.
The next step would be to scale up the complexity and test the AI's ability to identify birds against a background of trees, rather than the inside of a feeding box.
A good review of a movie I really enjoyed — Review: Thelma | RNZ News:
Thelma succeeds because it didn't realise it was meant to be a cosy, old folks feel-good movie. It thought it was a Mission Impossible action film. So why not be both?
Urgh, that was a shock. I needed to add a column of fractions, like this:
- 1/4
- 1/4
- 1/10
- 1/10
- 1/25
- 1/25
- 1/25
I quickly realised I had not the faintest idea how to do it! Thank goodness for spreadsheets.
An online calculator then converted the sum to a decimal. Hooray!
Update, 17-Sep-2024: in mac OS 15.0 Apple Notes makes this a whole lot easier with Math Notes
: type an expression followed by the equals (=) sign. Done!
Bit of a rare double rainbow to the southwest just after dawn this morning. 🌈
Reading a Sister Agnes book is like luxuriating in a hot bath. I highlighted several sections in Shadow of Death (Sister Agnes Mysteries Book 6) by Alison Joseph because they delighted me. 📚
Cow relaxing in the rain.
Sparrows in the rain. 🐦
An amazing 9 minute video about train graphs
— a ruler, paper and a pencil could prevent train crashes. How did this simple chart keep trains from crashing?:
Ibry displayed a chart that could show simultaneously the locations of all the trains between Paris and Le Havre in a twenty-four-hour period … the horizontal axis denoted the passing of time … down the vertical axis, each station was marked out along the route to Le Havre.
The other day we visited the Silky Otter movie theatre in Palmerston North. It was excellent and we'd go again.
There were two movie trailers, no ghastly ads. The seats were comfy leather recliners with a proper tray and a tiny light over the tray. Staff were friendly. Oh, and free parking.
Another good read in a series I enjoy: The Man Who Kept Secrets (The Shee McQueen Mystery Thriller Series Book 8)by Amy Vansant. 📚
When former patients start dying in strangely symbolic ways, Dr. Skinner hires Shee McQueen and her band of freelance mercenaries to solve their troubles before the hospital loses its coveted reputation.
It was a very unusual visitor to Waikawa Beach. My friend Stephen Betts found this injured bird on the beach and took it to Wellington Zoo for care. 🐦
Photos by Stephen Betts and used with permission.
The zoo updated:
the albatross is bright this morning and currently stable. It is indeed a light mantled sooty albatross.
In the last several decades I acquired more T-shirts than I ever needed. Most have been well-worn. Some were downgraded from 'good' or 'house' to 'garden' wear. Many are yellowed, saggy, faded, or have holes.
Today, as part of my ongoing spring-clean, many will now find a home as 'mulch' for plants.
