Gerade in einer Rasierwerbung <hello, world/> gesehen. Schon gut gedacht, aber beim nächsten Spot besser wohlformen als <hello_world/>. 😎

I wrote about the genocide in Palestine, and how tech has been silent and complicit.

https://blog.paulbiggar.com/i-cant-sleep/

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot in the current battle over the future of (pseudo) AI is the cotton gin.

I live in a country where industrial progress is always considered a positive. It’s such a fundamental concept to the American exceptionalism claim that we are taught never to question it, let alone realize that it’s propaganda.

One such myth, taught early in grade school, is the story of Eli Whitney and the cotton gin. Here was a classic example of a labor-saving device that made millions of lives better. No more overworked people hand cleaning the cotton (slaves, though that was only mentioned much later, if at all). Better clothes and bedding for the world. Capitalism at its best.

But that’s only half the story of this great industrial time saver. Where did those cotton cleaners go? And what was the impact of speeding up the process?

Now that the cleaning bottleneck was gone, the focus was on picking cotton as fast as possible. Those cotton cleaners likely, and millions of other slaves definitely, were sent to the fields to pick cotton. There was an unprecedented explosion in the slave trade. Industrial time management and optimization methods were applied to human beings using elaborate rule-based systems written up in books. How hard to punish to get optimal productivity. How long their lifespans needed to be to get the lost production per dollar. Those techniques, practiced on the backs and lives of slaves, became the basis of how to run the industrial mills in the North. They are the ancestors of the techniques that your manager uses now to improve productivity.

Millions of people were sold into slavery and worked to death *because* of the cotton gin. The advance it provided did not, in fact save labor overall. Nor did it make life better overall. It made a very small set of people much much richer; especially the investors around the world who funded the banks who funded the slave purchases. It made a larger set of consumers more comfortable at the cost of the lives of those poorer. Over a hundred years later this model is still the basis for our society.

Modern “AI” is a cotton gin. It makes a lot of painstaking things much easier and available to everyone. Writing, reading, drawing, summarizing, reviewing medical cases, hiring, firing, tracking productivity, driving, identifying people in a lineup…they all can now be done automatically. Put aside whether it’s actually capable of doing any of those things *well*; the investors don’t care if their products are good, they only care if they can make more money off of them. So long as they work enough to sell, the errors, and the human cost of those errors, are irrelevant. And like the cotton gin, AI has other side effects. When those jobs are gone, are the new jobs better? Or are we all working that much harder, with even more negative consequences to our life if we fall off the treadmill? One more fear to keep us “productive”.

The Luddites learned this lesson the hard way, and history demonizes them for it; because history isn’t written by the losers.

They’ve wrapped “AI” with a shiny ribbon to make it fun and appealing to the masses. How could something so fun to play with be dangerous? But like the story we are told about the cotton gin, the true costs are hidden.

#ML #TESCREAL

MorganaXProc-III 1.3 is out. New features (e.g. support for p:ixml) and minor bug fixes.
#xproc
https://www.xml-project.com/

I just upgrade #Emacs to 30, since in this version #eglot can handle #jdtls (java lsp) code actions. Besides, I also find some newly added options looking attractive.

1. completion-preview-mode: inline compilation preview (preview the first completion candidate) just like corfu-candidate-overlay, but it seems more smooth and efficient and works with any completion methods.
2. flymake-show-diagnostics-at-end-of-line (see the picture)
3. :vc configuration option, which means you can directly use use-package to get packages from version control repos without using elpaca or straight, etc. ( Though I haven't use this option yet.)

Edit: you can also get the periodically released eglot from GNU ELPA.

#Emacs30

JÜDISCHE KULTURTAGE HAMBURG
Zuhause bei Ida Dehmel
Szenische Lesung im Dehmel-Haus in Blankenese mit Barbara Nüsse & Günter Schaupp. Vorstellungen ab 19.11.23 15 h: https://juedischekulturtage.hamburg/veranstaltungen/zuhause-bei-ida-dehmel/ Weitere Termine: 19.11. 18 h, sowie 3.12. um 12, 15 & 17:30 h: https://juedischekulturtage.hamburg/#home-sec-2

Anyone aware of a list of Digital Humanities Centers and Labs at universities worldwide? Or Europe? Where would an _aspiring_ DH developer go to find possible employment or contracts. Asking for an (actual) friend.

#XSLT #XSLT4 #XML

An XSLT 3 course coming up later this month - https://www.delightfulcomputing.com/ - some space available.

Vortrag @janhorstmann: Produktive Reibungsflächen: Geisteswissenschaften und #Datenvisualisierung.

Freitag, 12. Januar 2024, 13-14:30 Uhr. Hybride Veranstaltung im Rahmen unserer Reihe „#DigitalHumanities – Wie geht das?“ im PhilTurm (Uni Hamburg) und online: https://blog.sub.uni-hamburg.de/?p=36727

Endlich mal online gestellt: Folien zu meinem Vortrag "Normdaten in der wissenschaftlichen Praxis".

Der Vortrag fand virtuell im Mai im Rahmen der Reihe "Digital Humanities - wie geht das?" der @stabihh statt.

https://doi.org/10.17613/8eyq-7r51

#normdatei #normdaten #gnd #geonames #digitaleedition #lobid #digitalhumanities

If you want to hear a 30-minute summary of my July paper on the uses and abuses of XML in lexicography, come to Declarative Amsterdam this November (there’s a free remote viewing option): https://declarative.amsterdam/

The paper (paywalled): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.datak.2023.102196
Preprint (not paywalled): https://www.lexiconista.com/pdf/better-than-xml.pdf

#paginaDH freut sich über Zuwachs! Wir haben zwei offene Stellen im Bereich Digital Humanities. Schonmal drüber nachgedacht in unser Team zu kommen? Wir suchen #SoftwareentwicklerIn und #FullStackSoftwareEntwicklerIn 📣 Schaut mal vorbei:
https://pagina.gmbh/startseite/ueber-uns/jobs/

Suche Nachmieter*in für Anfang Oktober in #Hamburg!

#Wohnung ca. 40m², 1-Zimmer im 3.OG (ganz oben) in Hamburg #Bergedorf. Supermärkte, Apotheke und ÖPNV um die Ecke.
Preis vom #Vermieter zzgl. Heizkosten (Gas, E.on) 696€.

- EBK (Kleiner Kühlschrank mit Gefrierfach, Spüle, 2 Kochplatten, KEIN Backofen)
- Badezimmer mit Wanne
- Kellerabteil
- Überdachter Eck-Balkon Richtung Stadtpark (Kinderspielplätze)
- Geräumiges Zimmer
- Bis 500mbit Internet über Vodafone verfügbar

RT wäre super! ❤️

An der @stabihh wollen wir das Hosting von #DiamondOpenAccess- Journals ausweiten. Mehr Journals = Umbau des Supports in einem Projekt, um den Standard auch bei mehr Publizierenden halten zu können. Für #openscience mit aufgekrempelten Ärmeln suchen wir eine Person mit BA Bibliotheks- und Informationsmanagement oder einer vergleichbaren Studienfachrichtung. Wir bieten eine E11 und ein tolles Team https://blog.sub.uni-hamburg.de/?p=36433 Fragen gerne an mich

#openbibliojobs
[edit: job-hashtag]

Molly Crabapple, artist and activist:

I'm looking for old tourist guide books for Syria. Specifically from the 50s period. Does anyone know where to look?

Edit: I'm mostly trying to figure out what they have to say about #transportation #infrastructure. What maps do they include, etc...

#DigitalHumanities #archives

Workshop: OCR4all – Open-Source Texterkennung (vor-)moderner Drucke und Handschriften (13.11.)

Mo., 13.11.2023, 9-17 Uhr Im 17. Stock im Bücherturm der Stabi. Referent: Florian Langhanki (JMU) OCR (Optical Character Recognition) und HTR (Handwritten Text Recognition) stellen in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften nach wie vor eine Herausforderung dar. OCR4all bietet allen Nutzer:innen eine frei verfügbare und einfach zu bedienende Möglichkeit, eigene OCR-Workflows…

https://blog.sub.uni-hamburg.de/?p=36367