blakestacey

Locker Weenies

(Geordi LaForge holding up a hand in a "stop" gesture) transhumanism

(Geordi LaForge pointing as if to say "now there's an idea) trans humanism

What happened was that I had a handful of articles that I couldn't find an "official" home for because they were heavy on the kind of pedagogical writing that journals don't like. Then an acqusitions editor at Springer e-mailed me to ask if I'd do a monograph for them about my research area. (I think they have a big list of who won grants for what and just ask everybody.) I suggested turning my existing articles into textbook chapters, and they agreed. The book is revised versions of the items I already had put on the arXiv, plus some new material I wrote because it was lockdown season and I had nothing else to do. Springer was, I think, the most likely publisher for a niche monograph like that. One of the smaller university presses might also have gone for it.

I should add that I have a book published with Springer. So, yeah, my work is being directly devalued here. Fun fun fun.

AI slop in Springer books:

Our library has access to a book published by Springer, Advanced Nanovaccines for Cancer Immunotherapy: Harnessing Nanotechnology for Anti-Cancer Immunity.  Credited to Nanasaheb Thorat, it sells for $160 in hardcover: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-86185-7

From page 25: "It is important to note that as an AI language model, I can provide a general perspective, but you should consult with medical professionals for personalized advice..."

None of this book can be considered trustworthy.

https://mastodon.social/@JMarkOckerbloom/114217609254949527

Originally noted here: https://hci.social/@peterpur/114216631051719911

Does this need to be marked NSFW? I think the joke about tagging the more serious posts that way ran its course a while ago, and we haven't been sticking to it.

And a new language feature, generating a list by lack-of-comprehension

Sloppenheimer

For an exposition of Bayesian probability by people who actually know math, there's Ten Great Ideas About Chance by Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms (Princeton University Press, 2018). And for an interesting slice of the history of the subject, there's Cheryl Misak's Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers (Oxford University Press, 2020).

For quantum physics, one recent offering is Barton Zwiebach's Mastering Quantum Mechanics: Essentials, Theory, and Applications (MIT Press, 2022). I like the writing style and the structure of it, particularly how it revisits the same topics at escalating levels of sophistication. (I'd skip the Elitzur-Vaidman "bomb tester" thought experiment for reasons.)

The description of "The questions ChatGPT shouldn't answer" doesn't seem to go with the text. Did you mean to link something else?

A Bluesky post by Jamelle Bouie prompted me to reflect on how I resent that my knowledge of toxic nerd deep lore is now socially relevant.