Tales from the Bitface

It was 30 years ago today, PJ Harvey tells us, that To Bring You My Love was released. Sounds as good as ever.

Give it a listen.

Looks like Amazon’s deal with Iain Banks’s estate to make a series out of Consider Phlebas is back on.

Pity it’s Amazon, but at least Adele is involved as an executive producer.

I remember Banksie saying all he wanted to see was the fight under the hovercraft, so let’s hope they leave that in.

Fascinating piece about how George Eliot seemingly wrote about AI. I disagree with this assertion, though:

Put simply: intelligence is not the same as consciousness.

…

But, for the avoidance of doubt, they are not the same thing. My own (simplified) view is that intelligence is the ability to achieve goals and consciousness is the phenomenon through which we experience qualia …

To my mind and understanding of the terms, there’s no intelligence without consciousness.

Having the first Creme Egg of the year with my coffee. Actually probably the first I’ve had in several years.

Artificial Intelligence is facing a crisis: humans are consuming far too many precious resources that AI needs to thrive. Every sip of water you take and every light you turn on could be sustaining the AI systems that uphold your digital conveniences.

Maybe not the thing that bothers me most about AI, but something that does bother me.

Have switched my blog to the Bayou Theme by Matt Langford, @Mtt. Liking the look. I’ll probably give it a few tweaks, but looking good so far.

Happy New Year, everyone. 2025 starts with London’s fireworks, and then, surprisingly, The Boomtown Rats on Hootenany.

Currently reading (and relatively close to finishing): Death’s End by Cixin Liu 📚

Oh, and Andy Murray’s going to be coaching Novak Djokovic.

‘Call a General Election’ is trending, with a parliamentary petition. ‘The country can’t stand another four years of this!’ I saw.

But… what is the ‘this’ they’re unhappy about? Labour have been in power for about five minutes, they haven’t had a chance to do anything yet. I don’t understand.

It’s the middle of November, why is this rose flowering and budding?

Watching Channel 4’s Unreported World segment on cocaine smuggling into Spain by mini submarines from South America. And I can’t help thinking, just fucking legalise it. Regulate it, tax it. Take control out of the hands of gangsters. Everyone would be safer.

And not just cocaine, obviously.

Oh, America, what have you done? How has this happened?

Watched the Channel 4 documentary about Hope Not Hate’s undercover investigation: Undercover: Exposing the Far Right. Very good, compelling viewing, and important.

Just booked to see Fucked Up on Saturday. I saw them back in 2011. I haven’t paid that much attention since. But since they’re playing at Oslo, Hackney, just down the road, it would be rude not to go.

The local parakeets basically live in our garden now.

I love that today’s Xkcd (probably strictly yesterday’s) celebrates the closure of the UK’s last coal-fired powerstation in such a British way: do all the sums in metric, then convert at the last to inches.

Let my phone update to iOS 18 overnight, and this morning… it’s hard to see the difference.

There wasn’t even a message saying, ‘Your phone was updated…’