greyduck.net

Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Author: Karel Kerezman

  • GenAI And Information Literacy

    There are so many reasons to despise the state of “generative AI,” and 404 Media highlights one more absolutely depressing and distressing reason: It’s intellectually kneecapping a generation of schoolkids and hobbling the teachers who try to impart learning unto them:

    They try to show me “information” ChatGPT gave them. I ask them, “How do you know this is true?” They move their phone closer to me for emphasis, exclaiming, “Look, it says it right here!” They cannot understand what I am asking them. It breaks my heart for them and honestly it makes it hard to continue teaching.

    Read the whole thing at Teachers Are Not OK, if you’re in the headspace to deal with feeling even more grim than usual on a Monday morning in this timeline we inhabit.

  • Then Why Do You Even HAVE All My Data?

    In the small stack of mail this afternoon I found a missive from Medical Insurance Provider. They wanted to let me know that people who suffer from my condition should look into taking medication for another, causally related condition.

    Which is great information, except I’ve been on the medication in question for five solid years now. You’d think that before they sent me a physical letter (that could’ve been an email) they might have checked their database, since they know literally everything about my medical situation.

    Oh well. At least this isn’t like the previous “hey did you know” letter in which they gave me points to consider when approaching menopause. Which… seems medically unlikely to be a problem for me, all things considered.

  • Spring Anime 2025: A Mixed Bag of Nuts

    I’m keeping up with a handful of shows this season, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm ranging from “I can’t wait for the next episode” to “well, I might as well see how this reaches a conclusion.” With a month and some-odd left to go in most of these show’s runs, it’s time for some thoughts.

    (Note that I’m leaving out the long-running, continuing Apothecary Diaries, which remains one of the finest shows of this decade and looks destined for all-time-classic status. We love Maomao in this household.)

    Still image from the anime, "Rock Is A Lady's Modesty," featuring one of the lead characters (Lilisa) rocking out on a guitar in a school classroom, standing next to a hefty-sized amplifier.

    Let’s get into specifics.

    (more…)

  • Random Bits: Mid-May 2025

    I haven’t had enough to say about any specific thing to flesh out an entire post… though I suppose I could go back to my pre-Twitter use of this site to simply post very short status updates and minor thoughts… maybe. We’ll see. In the meantime, here are a few tidbits from my recent life:

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  • State of Play: May 2025

    It’s been a little bit since the last one of these. So, what am I playing lately? Here’s a hint:

    Last Epoch video game screenshot: A mage and a weird floating three-armed minion hanging around in a dungeon.

    I mean, I also play some other games. Let’s catch up.

    (more…)

  • Stop Interacting With The Word Math Program

    Over on Tumblr, the “very functional webbed site” which is perpetually on the verge of falling completely apart, I don’t usually do more than reblog the occasional post, sometimes with a tag or so added, occasionally with actual commentary.

    One of the tags I use a lot lately? “#fuck genAI”

    Four rubber ducks styled to resemble boxy-type robots, in various colors.
    I would trust these duckies over the product of any given genAI algorithm.

    I recently added commentary to a post (one about the John Cena chatbot kerfuffle, if you’re curious) and thought, “You know what? I should store this on my own dingdanged website for posterity.” And so, somewhat reworked, here’s my official position on genAI garbage like ChatGPT and its ilk.

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