Category: You Should See This
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Whispers of A.I.âs Modular Future | The New Yorker
Whispers of A.I.âs Modular Future
ChatGPT is in the spotlight, but itâs WhisperâOpenAIâs open-source speech-transcription programâthat shows us where machine learning is going.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/whispers-of-ais-modular-future
Despite being one of the more sophisticated programs ever to run on my laptop, Whisper.cpp is also one of the simplest. If you showed its source code to A.I. researchers from the early days of speech recognition, they might laugh in disbelief, or cryâit would be like revealing to a nuclear physicist that the process for achieving cold fusion can be written on a napkin
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The Hunt for Russian Collaborators in Ukraine | The New Yorker
The Hunt for Russian Collaborators in Ukraine
As occupied territories are liberated, some residents face accusations that they sided with the enemy.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/06/the-hunt-for-russian-collaborators-in-ukraine
The next morning, the soldiers came back into the cellar. âWeâre taking you to the Chechens,â one of them said. âThey like the ones who arenât talkative.â The Chechens were based in another house whose owners had left Izyum at the start of the war. One of them poked Dzhosâs broken rib, then told another soldier to âbring out the spider.â The spider, Dzhos soon saw, was a box that contained a hand crank and some electrical wires. The Chechen fastened the wires around Dzhosâs ankles. Flashes of pain raced through his limbs like a lightning storm. âEither speak up or die,â the Chechen said. âYour heart wonât last.â He added, âYou wonât be the only one weâve buried.â The torture continued for several hours.
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Some Wagner Convict Fighters in Ukraine Are Returning to Russia – The New York Times
âVery Dangerous Peopleâ: Russiaâs Convict Fighters Are Heading Home
Tens of thousands of inmates have joined a mercenary group fighting with the Kremlinâs decimated forces in Ukraine. Some of them are returning to civilian life with military training and, in many cases, battlefield traumas.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/world/europe/wagner-convict-ukraine-russia.html
âThese are psychologically broken people who are returning with a sense of righteousness, a belief that they have killed to defend the Motherland,â said Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner rights lawyer who works with enlisted inmates. âThese can be very dangerous people.â
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Detroiters – TV Series | Comedy Central US
Detroiters | Comedy Central
Get to know Sam and Tim as they do everything possible to make their Chicago ad agency the best in the game.
via Comedy Central: https://www.cc.com/shows/detroiters
Best friends Sam and Tim, the proud owners of an ad company in Detroit, want to become the city’s biggest ad agency within a decade, but life keeps throwing them curveballs.
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Overreach by Owen Matthews | Goodreads
Dmitry Bukov: It’s like a theatre⊠today’s Russian does what is expected of him. Sometimes he applauds, sometimes he wolf-whistles. But he is not required to actually believe. Everyone knows that the man on the stage is not Prince Hamlet but Laurence Olivier. Nobody believes that what is happening on the stage is actually true. Do you think anyone believes what is being said on TV talk shows? But [after the invasion] the theatre is coming more like a circus. The people are not stupid. They watch and laugh nervously and see how low the actors will go.
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How âBattle Royaleâ Took Over Video Games | The New Yorker
How âBattle Royaleâ Took Over Video Games
With a simple, ingenious formula, a Japanese novel has inspired some of the most successful games in history.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-battle-royale-took-over-video-games
In the mid-nineteen-nineties, Koushun Takami was dozing on his futon on the island of Shikoku, Japan, when he was visited by an apparition: a maniacal schoolteacher addressing a group of students. âAll right, class, listen up,â Takami heard the teacher say. âToday, Iâm going to have you all kill each other.â Takami was in his twenties, and he had recently quit his job as a reporter for a local newspaper to become a novelist. As a literature student at Osaka University, he had started and abandoned several horror-infused detective stories. But the well had long since run dry; he had left his job with neither a plan nor a plot in mind. The visitation wasnât a haunting; it was an epiphany.