When you’ve been told to find new ways to use AI in technical documentation. "Some Documentation Managers and Technical Authors are now being asked to demonstrate how they are using AI and to quantify the benefits. Here are some suggestions on how to approach that challenge." In this article, I saw several uses for AI that would have potentially improved my productivity in my last job.
The man who proved rockets could reach space was mocked in his time. "One hundred years ago, Robert Goddard’s invention of the liquid-fueled rocket changed space exploration." This week was the 100th anniversary of Robert Goddard's first launch of a liquid fueled rocket. We've come a long way in a 100 years.
Dish drive (gift link). "Hundreds of antennas take root in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley for an ambitious project to monitor signals from space."
Wireless eye implant helps blind patients read again. "Now researchers have shown that a tiny wireless eye implant may help restore some of that lost central vision. In a clinical study, many blind older adults who received the implant regained enough clarity to recognize letters and short words. While the device does not restore natural sight, it helped several participants read again after years of irreversible vision decline."
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced the finalists for the 2025 Nebula Awards. The finalists will be announced in Chicago and online during the Nebula Conference and Awards, June 3-7.
These are the finalists for the Best Novel award.
When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory (Saga)
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan UK)
I've not read any of the finalists. I'm way behind on my reading right now but I did read a couple of current novels last year, Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler, which I did expect to be a nominee, and John Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye, which might make the Hugo finalists. I also just finished Annalee Newitz's Automatic Noodle, which is a finalist for the Best Novella award.
My vision is gradually getting better, so I've been taking the occasional picture, mostly using my Pixel 8 Pro. This is a picture of the ice on Frenchman's Bay, gradually breaking up and melting on a warm spring morning.
This week's musical treat is piece of music that links the horrors of the Holocaust to the terrorizing of immigrant communities by ICE raids in the United States. "For Anne in the Attic" was performed in Spokane, WA earlier this month. From The Globe and Mail article (gift link) titled "Chorus of Discontent"
Dressed in church choir black, the women standing at the front of the Unity Spiritual Center in Spokane, Wash., last Sunday began to sing a new song that likens the U.S. treatment of asylum seekers to the Holocaust.
“Could they see you run for your lives as the forces of hatred pursued you, found you,” the choir sang.
“Where was their humanity?”
Midway through, the pronouns shifted − no longer “they,” but “we,” a switch from the past to the present. “Do we know? Do we know?” they sang. “Can we hear your pleas for asylum when fleeing, afraid for your lives?”
The choral arrangement, For Anne in the Attic, was written by Janice Mayfield, a local woman who penned the words after rereading The Diary of Anne Frank amid the cou--ntless headlines about U.S. immigration enforcement
I have been wondering why the current political situation hasn't generated more protest songs. There have been some, as pointed out by NPR. I blogged about Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Minneapolis" recently, but you're more likely to the 60-year-old Stephen Stills classic, "For What It's Worth" than the Springsteen song on what passes for radio these days.
You probably won't hear "For Anne in the Attic" on the radio, but it may become a modern standard in church and choral performances. (If anyone can find the lyrics online, please let me know in the comments).
Trump is at it again, just this week talking about "Governor Carney" again. I think Carney, as a former central banker, must have a fairly thick skin, but the disprespect is surely pissing off a lot of Canadians, including me.
So here are more articles about how Canada and our formerly friendly neighbour have been doing.
The United States is at War... With Canada. 'Simon Tisdall writing in the Guardian states, “Know your enemy is the first lesson of war - and Britain’s enemy is now Donald Trump.” This is a lesson that ordinary Canadians have known for well over a year. Trump continues to taunt us and belittle our nation in the same way that Putin ridiculed Ukraine prior to the invasion.'
BREAKING: Trump's Next Pretext To Break Canada Is Already Built. It's Iran, and Canada Should Be Very Worried... "Iranian operatives. Canadian soil. American outrage. And a Pedophile/Rapist/Felon President who has already told you exactly what he wants." Note that in the last week, three synagogues and the US consulate have been shot at in Toronto.
Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine, has just turned 100. Almost all magazines from the pulp era are long gone, but somehow Amazing has managed to hang on. Even more amazing, I know its editor, Lloyd Penney, who co-published a Torus, an SF fanzine, in the early 1990s.
1st issue of Amazing Stories
Amazing is still around, at least as a website, and you can order their annaul best of anthology on Amazon or other online relailers.
We’re Training Students To Write Worse To Prove They’re Not Robots, And It’s Pushing Them To Use More AI. The irony of being forced to dumb down an essay about a story warning against the forced suppression of excellence was not lost on me. Or on my kid, who spent a frustrating afternoon removing words and testing sentences one at a time, trying to figure out what invisible tripwire the algorithm had set. The lesson the kid absorbed was clear: write less creatively, use simpler vocabulary, and don’t sound too good, because sounding good is now suspicious."
Managing phone media. "Dealing with photos, screenshots, and videos created by your phone isn’t simply a matter of deleting them. In this article, I’ll describe how to move media off your phone and onto your computer, remove media from the cloud, and disable automatic synchronization of media (which is usually the default)."
The bombshell results that demand a new theory of the universe (archive link). "Last year, our most detailed map of the universe yet suggested our understanding of dark energy has been wrong for decades. The shock result is reigniting the search for a better cosmic story." This is one of the best articles on the subject of dark matter and dark energy that I have read.
Meat Without The Animals. "Meat cultivated from cells — with no need to raise and slaughter an animal — is now a reality. But can it be made cheaply enough to displace animal agriculture?"
Mozilla Partners with Anthropic to Better Secure Firefox. "As Mozilla explains, this isn’t a one-off: Unlike the previous AI-assisted bug reports it’s received, which included false positives that required unnecessary work on its part, the Anthropic bug reports were different. They focused on the Firefox JavaScript engine. And each included minimal test cases to help Mozilla quickly verify and reproduce each issue."
