Week 49 of 2023- W492023
All the open browser tabs I get to... “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate”
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my current or any previous employer. This blog may also contain links to other websites or resources. I am not responsible for the content on those external sites or any changes that may occur after the publication of my posts.
End Disclaimer
"One day or day one. You decide" - Paulo Coelho
“Trash Takes Itself Out” -Taylor Swift
News
AIML
Ego, Fear and Money: How the A.I. Fuse Was Lit
The Inside Story of Microsoft’s Partnership with OpenAI
The Sam Altman drama points to a deeper split in the tech world
OpenAI’s Custom Chatbots Are Leaking Their Secrets
Introducing Gemini: our largest and most capable AI model
Google’s best Gemini demo was faked
AI Doomers are worse than wrong - they're incompetent
Painting
The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, John Martin
Crypto
How the Winklevii’s Second Act Went Bad
Cyber
23andMe Says Health Data Was Included in Hack That Compromised 6.9 Million Users
Markets
Farnam Street on Charlie Munger
The Fed Matters Less Than You Think
Transitory Is Taking Longer than Expected
Investors just don’t want to admit just how bad an idea it was to “Lock in 5%”
Oil’s Wild Ride Is Driven by a Disruptive Band of Bot Traders
Why Do Investors Play Low Probability Games?
Why Are There No Minicomputers Any More?
Misc
The sauna secret: why Finland is the happiest country in the world
How to Build a Better Motivational Speaker
The Biggest Hollywood Winners and Losers of 2023
Scientists Have Reported a Breakthrough In Understanding Whale Language
An Easy-Sounding Problem Yields Numbers Too Big for Our Universe
The NCAA’s Radical Proposal to Pay Division I Athletes
Tom Whitwell: 52 things I learned in 2023
He Plays the NFL’s Least Valued Position. He’s Never Been More Valuable.
It’s the Most Hyped Burger in Years — But Is It Any Good? Hamburger America is here.
Papers
BenchLMM: Benchmarking Cross-style Visual Capability of Large Multimodal Models:
Github: https://github.com/AIFEG/BenchLMM
Adaptation of sperm whales to open-boat whalers: rapid social learning on a large scale?
MatterGen: a generative model for inorganic materials design
Migration and the Value of Social Networks
Book
The Art Thief, Michael Finkel
Brain scratch idea from the book- stolen art sells on a sliding scale on the black market, starting at about 10% the original value of the piece, and going down to around 3% for well known pieces and artists.
So the more famous and more well known, the “cheaper” the art is.
Does anything else work this way?
10 unique names for groups of animals
A Raft of Otters
A Scold of Jays
A Congress of Baboons
A Leap of Leopards
A Charm of Hummingbirds
A Glaring of Cats
A Shiver of Sharks
A Sleuth of Bears
A Wake of Vultures
A Skulk of Foxes