Chat

[Randi]

Rain here too. Also, clouds and city lights.
But, I'll keep an eye open

[ggordon]

My eyes couldn't see them. Too many city lights. However, I read that cell phone cameras could sometimes see them when human eyes can't. By pointing my phone to the sky with the camera turned on, I could see them in the screen; nice blue, green, and red. I took a couple of photos. I'm busy right now, but will try to upload them later.

Supposed to be another chance tonight.

[ggordon]

The Northern Lights did not show up all that well in this first photo. There is just too much light in my neighborhood.



Later I went to my backyard where it was darker and got this better photo.



My eyes just saw black, but cell phone cameras seem to be better at sensing the light.

The best view was what I saw live on the phone's screen when the camera was enabled. When the second photo was taken, I was seeing brilliant blues and greens on the screen, but the colors didn't come out as bright in the photo.

[jil]

Apparently it was very good around here on Friday night but I didn't realise anything was going on until I saw all the lovely photos on Saturday morning

Cloudy Saturday night. Thunderstorms predicted for Sunday evening!

[pommystuart]

Nice shots Gordon.
Sorry you missed it Jill they are something else to see in the real.

Clouds coming in down here.

[d0cent]

Thank you all for birthday wishes!
As always, I was in my native town Omsk, visiting parents. Last week there was Northern Lights in the sky even in sibera!

[pommystuart]

Some may find these interesting.
The magazine
https://cosmosmagazine.com/

A story from the magazine
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/expe ... antarctica

[Michael]

Very interesting.

[pommystuart]

Welcome back home Michael. Hope you had a good flight.

[Michael]

Thank you, it went as well as a 15 hour flight can go. We must have had great winds because we got to YVR an hour ahead of schedule. It meant I could sit in an airport lounge for an extra hour waiting for my 10 minute flight home to YYJ.

[Randi]

A bit late since Chris is no longer here to post them...
The 2023 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

[Michael]

[Randi]

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.
-Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (22 May 1859-1930)

[pommystuart]

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/se ... -BB1mUqII?

Sorry cannot pull the article from the page.

[Maikel]

Google’s “AI Overview” can give false, misleading, and dangerous answers
From glue-on-pizza recipes to recommending "blinker fluid," Google's AI sourcing needs work.

https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... s-answers/

Google Search’s “udm=14” trick lets you kill AI search for good
The power of URL parameters lets you unofficially turn off Google's AI Overview [until Google changes the parameter]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05 ... -for-good/

[Randi]

Funny and sad both.

[arboggs]

The most ridiculous part about the Google AI nonsense is that it is entirely unnecessary. What we really need is for them to kill the era of ad and SEO optimization that has made Google searching worse and worse over the years and the total fakery that is "AI" is not the answer. Like, Google's own choices have made Google search worse and slapping this extra bit of nonsense on it doesn't solve any problems.

[pommystuart]

https://duckduckgo.com/ as far as i know does not us AI and it claims not to target the ads you see on it.

[Maikel]

Yes, and already there are reports that AI is used to make certain your page is mentioned by the new Google AI.
Endless circle, like fighting spam, isn't it?

And don't forget, as mentioned before, AI consumes a lot of energy and water.
An article in the Brussels Times claims a ChatGPT query consumes up to 25 times more electricity than a regular Google search.
Additionally, about 20 to 50 queries evaporate about half a litre of water to keep the computers cool.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/1042696/c ... han-google

An older article by Tech HQ claims training ChatGPT consumed 1.287 GWh (Giga Watt hour), the equivalent of what 120 household in the US consume in a year.
https://techhq.com/2023/03/data-center- ... e-chatgpt/
That was for training ChatGPT 3, some say training ChatGPT 4 did cost factors more.
And now they start training ChatGPT 5.

All this energy and water consumption to get an answer you can't trust.
Nonetheless, every big tech company will jump on the bandwagon, afraid they otherwise will be left behind.
And if you don't use their product, they can't show you ads, or sell your data, and thus will have less revenue.
Can't disappoint the stockholders, now can we?

B.T.W. DuckDuckGo uses the Bing API to perform searches.
Bing results aren't as good as Google's used to be.

[Randi]

Helen J
Gone but never forgotten

Burials at sea and other recorded deaths