The consequences of shutting down the Institute of Museum and Library Services would be particularly dire for smaller museums and rural museums.
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Shadow libraries and AI training
For those just learning about LibGen because of the reporting on Meta and other companies training LLMs on pirated books, I’d highly recommend the book Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education (open access).
I just read it while working on the Wikipedia article about shadow libraries, and it’s a fascinating history.
I fear the already fraught conversations about shadow libraries will take a turn for the worse now that they’re overlapping with the incredibly fraught conversations about AI training.
Issue 79 – Mundus sine Caesaribus
Frankly I think the majority of the crypto backlash to the anti-trans Solana ad was because they made it too obvious that they've realized anti-woke MAGA reactionaries are the latest marks
Solana just published a trans-bashing ad, where a man sees a therapist because he's been "having thoughts again ... about innovation ... crypto, AI" and she urges him to "channel his energy into something more productive like coming up with a new gender ... Why don't we focus on pronouns? ... Numbers are non-binary."
It finishes: "America is back. It's time to accelerate."
In June 2020, Solana tweeted: "We believe in equality, justice for all regardless of race or gender, and that #BlackLivesMatter. We stand in solidarity with everyone fighting for justice."
Exciting: The Ghost team has just released the beta version of its ActivityPub support for people using their hosted service
filling out my pre-screening form for my annual physical and wondering when they’ll add “oh, you know, the expected amount these days” as an option for when they ask if i’m feeling down, depressed or hopeless