rob

If anybody wants to know a few things about me

#UK
#Hedgehogs
#LiberalDemocrat
#WalterPresents
#CognitiveTrailTheory
#CovidIsNotOver
#Nightwish
#Springsteen
#ActuallyImReallyQuiteBoring

Profile pic is me with my fluffy sheep Ruffles. Header is about a hundred sheep who decided to form a ring on the downs one day. I'm not that interested in sheep, really.

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robparsons_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2024-10-09 15:39:15

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yes, whatever missteps Starmer is making - and he's making lots - if they bring about steady, even if small, improvement in the lives of the bottom 2/3, that will dent populism a lot. As well as being the right thing to do.

2024-10-09 14:57:37

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this is not true; most disability benefits are means tested. I think PIP (and DLA as was) an Attendance Allowance are the only ones not means tested. That doesn't invalidate your suspicion. There is a faction within DWP that will do anything to mess with claimants.

2024-10-09 14:51:05

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the silver lining is that it reduces the chances of a Tory revival prior to the next election. 🤔 #UKPolitics

2024-10-07 13:30:25

Is it a coincidence that the post code for the DWP's Oldham office, which handles all the ESA business, ends in "FU"? I think we should be told. #UKPolitics #disability

2024-10-06 10:10:29

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the answer to the mystery is - Labour are. I've never been so disappointed at the beginning of a new government. (When Tories get in, I'm disappointed at the election result, so it's already happened before they start.)

2024-10-04 20:13:08

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"... all they are doing is optimizing their performance to maximize reward and minimize red flags". No, they are not doing anything "to maximise reward" - they are not capable of purpose; there is no understanding of what a reward is. Their performance changes as new rules are added. That's all. And that's why they're not getting more accurate, because however much more data is poured in, they have no "knowledge" of "truth". Come on, arstechnica, this is basic.

2024-10-04 20:09:17

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while the logic of what is being said here is reasonable as an account of how AI is not becoming more accurate, the article anthopomorphises AI more than any other I have ever read. "AI models are not really intelligent, not in a human sense of the word." Wrong. There is no "intelligence" at all. That is not how they work.

2024-09-25 11:59:29

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IMO there is a strong case for universal benefits. They ensure that those who need it actually get it, whereas now we are being told about the several hundred thousand who ought to get it but don't. The overall saving is £1.4billion, which any spending department loses any time it sneezes. It can be made taxable so those who don't need it send some of it back, and the rest is a price worth paying for living in a civilised society as opposed to a cruel one.

2024-09-25 11:56:30

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I think you mean hypothermia. In any case, I assume reassurance to business was always the ill conceived purpose of this ill conceived cut.

2024-09-24 08:34:34

So now i's the Labour party failing to realise that many people are on long term sickness benefits - Because. They. Are. Sick. FFS do something about covid and the other condtions that cause long term sickness #UKPolitics

2024-09-08 09:57:24

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Labour didn't win this election so much as he Tories losing it. If history repeats itself (I'm very much hoping it will), the Tories will, as after 1997, go through two or three iterations of "We need to be even nastier" before tacking back to the centre and making themselves electable again. In other words, despite Labour's incipient poverty of aspiration, I'm banking on the Tories losing again in 2029.

2024-09-06 10:22:52

I've found a good use for AI for the Guardian. To check all its output for instances of "reign" and check that they are spelled correctly. Clue: if it comes after the word "free", it's not. #spelling

2024-08-25 09:26:24

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no.

2024-08-17 09:10:39

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I have to say this is positively uncivilised. You just get a bigger shelf.

2024-08-10 09:22:23

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It's not democracy as such, it's the first past the post system that forces people into a minimax posture. Bringing in PR would be one step to making democracy work a lot better.

2024-08-07 21:21:54

"Rioter who punched police officer in face in Southport jailed for three years". I'm wondering what he would have to have done to get five years like the climate protesters, who didn't actually protest... #UKPolitics

2024-07-05 09:41:06

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true conversation on a doorstep a few years ago. "We're voting Conservative. My father was Army, my husband was Army, and we're non-political".

2024-06-29 09:28:10

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no, no, no, no, you don't understand. The point is that research done by British people is good research. Research done by immigrants is bad research.Now do you see?

2024-06-24 13:10:55

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ditto

2024-06-24 12:37:21

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one of the things we could do to get the process of change working properly is to stop talking about "re-joining". We won't be rejoining; we'll be joining; starting from scratch. One bonus of getting the language to reflect the reality is that we can reduce the amount of moaning we'll get about undoing Brexit (as if the vote to leave was the apotheosis of democracy). Brexit has happened, it's over, it's done. We're doing something different now.

2024-06-11 20:24:32

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if it halfway works, I'll agree with you. Correcting an almost ready proof is far quicker and easier than writing one from scratch. OTOH, I like writing alt text; it's a challenge. The art is not just to laboriously detail the elements of the image but to tell the story the image tells. AI may get very competent at the former, but it's waaaaaaay off being able to do the latter.

2024-06-11 20:13:26

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I' glad to know that, because al the AI produced alt text I've seen has been absolute garbage.