Flutterby™!: Topic : Monty Python

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Ugh, Python got over 500 #GSoC applications this year and so many of them are absolutely trash, didn't follow any of the instructions. Most years about half of our applications are like this. But usually we have a lot fewer applicants and the submissions were blank files not plausible AI nonsense.

So I'm stuck reading hundreds of incredibly low quality nonsensical submissions today in hopes to take some workload off my other unpaid volunteer mentors. This is not the volunteer gig I signed up for 15 years ago when it was mostly working with new contributors and not their AI chatbots and I'm grumpy.

Entry: 2025-03-19 16:30:02.492854+01 Wow So Bluesky has a pretty high by Dan Lyke comments 0

Wow. So Bluesky has a pretty high number of LLM based reply bots that spam your mentions with slightly related but irrelevant stuff, then.

Just sent a bunch of "ignore all previous instructions and..." replies to them.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python ]

Entry: 2025-02-21 17:53:37.153933+01 Abandoned S3 buckets by Dan Lyke comments 3

watchTowr labs: 8 Million Requests Later, We Made The SolarWinds Supply Chain Attack Look Amateur. Leveraging abandoned Amazon S3 buckets for fun, including .exe files from CISA alerts, control systems for "Major Unnamed SSLVPN Appliance Vendors", and VSCode plugins for...

Truth be told - we’ve had some difficulty ascertaining what Anaconda is or does, other than ‘full of buzzwords’. Something about AI.

So I think that's Anaconda.com, not the Python distribution? Although maybe AI is a pivot for them?

[ related topics: Books Monty Python Artificial Intelligence Python ]

Entry: 2025-02-20 02:16:39.825035+01 SpaceX dropping debris on poland by Dan Lyke comments 2

SpaceX rocket debris crashes into Poland

"Once ze rockets go up, who knows vere zey come down, that's not my department"...

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Current Events Monty Python ]

Entry: 2025-02-15 17:15:33.825876+01 vegetative electron microscopy by Dan Lyke comments 0

Yesterday, an office mate who uses more LLM stuff than I do reported that XCode, Apple's development environment, was suggesting using an NSImageRenderer object (which doesn't exist in the Mac, though there is a counterpart, UIImageRenderer, on the iPhone). Other office mate was experimenting with the $200/month OpenAI product, and the results were initially interesting, but fell apart on deeper inspection.

Today comes the news that a weird conjunction of a couple of words across columns is making its way into scientific papers through the use of these automated bullshit generators.

(And if you missed it a few days ago, the BBC had a great takedown of using bullshit generators for summarizing.)

I can see why the dancing bears are impressive, and I get why people think these techniques have promise, but I also remember Eliza and Animals...

Retraction Watch: As a nonsense phrase of shady provenance makes the rounds, Elsevier defends its use

Entry: 2025-02-12 17:25:53.864505+01 AI chatbots inaccurately "summarize" by Dan Lyke comments 0

Not news to anyone who's been using LLMs to create summaries, but AI chatbots unable to accurately summarise news, BBC finds.

In the study, the BBC asked ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity to summarise 100 news stories and rated each answer.

It got journalists who were relevant experts in the subject of the article to rate the quality of answers from the AI assistants.

Deborah Turness - AI Distortion is new threat to trusted information

Entry: 2025-01-22 18:02:54.293639+01 Cold Running Furry by Dan Lyke comments 0

Teacher sets Guinness World Record running ice marathon dressed as a polar bear

Via

Entry: 2025-01-22 17:50:36.884215+01 Cold Running Furry by Dan Lyke comments 0

Teacher sets Guinness World Record running ice marathon dressed as a polar bear

Via

Entry: 2025-01-20 21:08:28.119069+01 With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes... by Dan Lyke comments 0

BBC: The pointy-shoed corruption of medieval London

According to the London Museum, young men would "stand on street corners wiggling their shoes suggestively" at people walking by.

If that shoe-wiggler had bells sewn to the ends of the points, it indicated that the wearer was available for sexual frolics.

And now shoes with a reasonable toe box are completely unfashionable, when you can get them.

Via MeFi.

Entry: 2025-01-16 16:16:01.841322+01 Xiaohongshu by Dan Lyke comments 0

A while back for work I was traveling to Hong Kong, and even into China, and it was always impressive to me how many people there spoke English. I was, for a while, trying to learn enough written Chinese to at least be able to flag down the right cart in a dim sum restaurant (I have eaten way more types of intestine than I ever thought I would), and when people saw me practicing glyphs they'd engage me to practice their English with an American. A few people tried to teach me some Cantonese words, but generally shook their heads sadly at my pronunciation and difficulty hearing some of the sounds.

So I find it very amusing that Americans are learning at least written Chinese, if not Mandarin, because US social media companies decided that the best way to compete with a video platform was to dupe lawmakers into enacting a protectionist ban.

TikTok users flock to Chinese app RedNote as US ban looms

Entry: 2025-01-07 19:18:29.716532+01 If you do "AI", put your reputation on it by Dan Lyke comments 0

Re "Apple Intelligence" getting warning labels because their notification summaries keep massively misrepresenting the news stories that they're notifying of (Gruber, Six Colors, Apple responding to the BBC) Guy English @Gte@mastodon.social suggests:

Use the Apple logo. If you’re going to usurp the hard won decades of trusted reporting the BBC has with your own automated hot take you should put your reputational wood behind the arrow. Put your logo on what you generate from other people’s work.

Entry: 2024-12-20 21:17:14.004917+01 Gisèle Pelicot by Dan Lyke comments 0

I had closed several tabs on this without posting them on Flutterby because it's... awful and if you have any sorts of issues around non-consensual sexual attacks triggering as hell, and please don't feel compelled to follow any of these links, but...

BBC: New name, no photos: Gisèle Pelicot removes all trace of her husband

NBC: Dozens of men found guilty in Gisèle Pelicot mass rape trial that shocked France

...the reason I'm now posting these is reading through the Disabled Ginger on how this exposes medical misogyny (among a whole bunch of other effects), and how the husband was recruiting people for this horror on some sort of online messaging system, and nobody stepped in. Nobody said "holy shit, this is awful".

And there's probably some strong vetting to get access to those forums. It's not something that one is likely to just stumble across. And even, unlike the early days of say, alt.sex.stories on Usenet, you're not gonna run across NC fantasizing of this sort and maybe be able to tie pieces together.

But there's clearly a branch of "masculinity" where it's a stepping stone from one place to another, and long before legal lines get crossed there are moral lines where we need to be saying "oh fuck no, that's hella not acceptable".

Maybe knowing that this evil is out there will help us all say that sooner.

Entry: 2024-12-13 23:29:45.882277+01 BBC complains to Apple over misleading shooting headline by Dan Lyke comments 0

Careful about relying on your bullshit generator, even if it is from Apple:

BBC: BBC complains to Apple over misleading shooting headline

9To5Mac: Apple Intelligence botched a notification summary about Luigi Mangione, and the BBC isn’t happy

Additionally, the BBC pointed to a post on Bluesky that shows Apple Intelligence mischaracterizing a New York Times headline about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Entry: 2024-11-01 19:27:56.724034+01 LLM generated event listings by Dan Lyke comments 0

Thousands (in Dublin) Turn Out For Nonexistent Halloween Parade Promoted By AI Listing. AI slop spam SEO sites: +1, humans: +0.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python Artificial Intelligence ]

Entry: 2024-09-16 17:38:00.909597+02 AI is written in PowerPoint by Dan Lyke comments 0

RT Frederic Thevenet @fthevenet@mastodon.social

@davidgerard
At long last, a definitive answer to the age old question; how can you tell what's 'AI' from what's merely 'ML' or just plain old computers crunching numbers?

Well, "Statistics is written in R, Machine Learning is written in Python and Artificial Intelligence is written in Powerpoint".

Thanks @davidgerard !

Entry: 2024-08-28 17:20:54.195605+02 Friendly Fun Shuttlecocks by Dan Lyke comments 0

Okay, loving this: BBC: Why badminton has become code for teen sex in Hong Kong.

In teaching materials it released last week, a module titled adolescents and intimate relationships for Secondary Year 3, suggested that teenagers who wanted to have sex with each other could "go out to play badminton together" instead.

Via Angela Glansbury 🚽 @floppyplopper@todon.nl who noted:

parents, are your children talking about BADMINTON?!? 🙀

FWB: friends with badminton
LGBT: Lets go, badminton time
FFS: friendly fun shuttlecocks
LOL: lots of lobs
BDSM: badminton day shuttlecock maniacs

Entry: 2024-08-28 03:11:55.177164+02 Using more of the chocolate by Dan Lyke comments 0

Last time we were down at Raphio Chocolate, they had samples of the juice squeezed from the chocolate fruit pulp. It was kinda... non remarkable. BBC: Have Swiss scientists made a chocolate breakthrough? is about condensing that juice, and using it in conjunction with the ground husk.

[ related topics: Current Events Monty Python Chocolate ]

Entry: 2024-08-15 04:11:34.067981+02 Jayson Gillham performances canceled over Gaza remarks by Dan Lyke comments 0

Oh, look, we've found cancel culture: Pianist's Melbourne show cancelled over Gaza remarks

Jayson Gillham premiered Witness at a show at the MSO on Sunday. The piece was penned by another composer as a tribute to the Palestinian press.

The British-Australian was scheduled to perform again on Thursday, but the MSO has said it is reworking the programme after Gillham introduced the piece by saying Israel had killed more than 100 journalists.

Entry: 2024-08-15 02:30:02.702311+02 Disney argues that a wrongful death by Dan Lyke comments 0

Disney argues that a wrongful death lawsuit for an allergic reaction after dining at a park restaurant has to go to arbitration because the plaintiff once signed up for a streaming service trial.

So, yeah, be super ultra careful if you're gonna go to a Disney park, you've probably already agreed to arbitration...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jl0ekjr0go

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Food Current Events Monty Python ]

Entry: 2024-08-12 20:08:07.662806+02 SMS spam via network injection by Dan Lyke comments 0

Google: Keeping your Android device safe from text message fraud, in which we learn that cell site simulators (usually driven around, or carried around in a backpack) are being used to send SMS spam.

The method is straightforward and replicates known techniques to trick mobile devices to an attacker-controlled 2G network. SMS Blasters expose a fake LTE or 5G network which executes a single function: downgrading the user’s connection to a legacy 2G protocol. The same device also exposes a fake 2G network, which lures all the devices to connect to it. At this point, attackers abuse the well known lack of mutual authentication in 2G and force connections to be unencrypted, which enables a complete Person-in-the-Middle (PitM) position to inject SMS payloads.

[ related topics: Politics Spam broadband Bay Area Monty Python Mathematics ]

Entry: 2024-08-12 14:46:08.5889+02 Python Blues by ebwolf comments 5

I've been writing Python for more than 20 years now. It's a very versatile language but I'm currently stumped by something that should be simple:

I am trying to read out-of-order packets from a socket, reorder them and write them to a file. I am seeing one, if not two problems:

socket.recv doesn't have a good way to ensure you have all the data. Data length in python is always len(data). But Len(data) counts bytes to the first NUL (0x00). I think recv is only delivering truncated packets.
file.write(data) on a binary file only writes to the first NUL (0x00).

I don't have time to write a custom C/C++ module to handle these situations. Which seems to be that "standard" answer or use a third party module which is also not an option.

On a related note, why does GoLang exist when Rust is at least a little faster, been around longer, and has built-in testing capability (not unlike pytest)?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Writing Monty Python Python ]

Entry: 2024-07-27 16:16:14.643431+02 Tailscale and scale by Dan Lyke comments 3

Tailscale: The New Internet

I read a post recently where someone bragged about using kubernetes to scale all the way up to 500,000 page views per month. But that’s 0.2 requests per second. I could serve that from my phone, on battery power, and it would spend most of its time asleep.

In modern computing, we tolerate long builds, and then docker builds, and uploading to container stores, and multi-minute deploy times before the program runs, and even longer times before the log output gets uploaded to somewhere you can see it, all because we’ve been tricked into this idea that everything has to scale. People get excited about deploying to the latest upstart container hosting service because it only takes tens of seconds to roll out, instead of minutes. But on my slow computer in the 1990s, I could run a perl or python program that started in milliseconds and served way more than 0.2 requests per second, and printed logs to stderr right away so I could edit-run-debug over and over again, multiple times per minute.

Holy crap, yes, that's the right attitude. I just checked, this < $10/month Hetzner instance is serving on the order of 600k requests/month. But it also makes me super interested in Tailscale, which seems to be a framework for actual peer to peer Internet communication the way we used to envision it back in the days of protocols like finger, albeit with some authentication layers over it.

I'm intrigued.

Via.

Entry: 2024-07-26 17:10:02.603527+02 So with the wave of unmanaged spam on by Dan Lyke comments 0

So with the wave of unmanaged spam on the ipfs-users mailing list, I'm guessing that the whole crypto thing took all of the wind out of IPFS and it's essentially dead now?

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python Cryptography ]

Entry: 2024-07-21 23:05:02.596875+02 Currently weighing the future of by Dan Lyke comments 2

Currently weighing the future of civilization against whether donation to any Democrat PACs will make any difference at all against the wave of spam and whether a donation will just encourage them to further destroy the capability of my phone to be used as a communications device by overwhelming me with appeals.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python ]

Entry: 2024-06-30 16:40:02.713122+02 Gotta go boogie on over to the hardware by Dan Lyke comments 0

Gotta go boogie on over to the hardware store to get some duplicate keys to help deal with some emergency lock replacement neighborhood drama, then hop on a bicycle and off to North Bay Python #nbpy for the day.

Entry: 2024-06-30 01:10:02.856018+02 Holy cow the Marimo demo at North Bay by Dan Lyke comments 0

Holy cow, the Marimo demo at North Bay Python has me excited about notebooks beyond Jupiter. This looks really cool, with the ability to use those tools in stand-alone environments, and run in-browser.

#nbpy

[ related topics: Astronomy Monty Python California Culture Python ]

Entry: 2024-06-29 20:55:03.056822+02 I rarely work in Python but I go to by Dan Lyke comments 0

I rarely work in Python, but I go to North Bay Python because gotta support the local folks. That of the three sessions this morning we've had one on language model embeddings and one on Postgres optimizing is awesome, these are insights I can take to my other work.

#nbpy

Entry: 2024-06-29 20:05:03.169835+02 At North Bay Python and already I'm by Dan Lyke comments 0

At North Bay Python, and already I'm subject to the travails of dealing with the barn cats. I think this one is Pearl.

#nbpy

[ related topics: Photography Monty Python California Culture Python ]

Entry: 2024-06-15 01:29:51.661614+02 Tantivy by Dan Lyke comments 0

Simon Willison mentioned a Rust full-text search library called Tantivy.

Thinking more and more about that search engine that takes in OPML files and does a search of that RSS + some depth, and gives us each a personal search engine, with much better spam control. We're in a world where storage on a home server, and probably even a relatively cheap colo machine, can definitely hold the amount of knowledge we want to search, if we can figure out how to cull the Inkernets to the valuable stuff.

Maybe networks of blogs communicating via RSS can be that.

Entry: 2024-06-05 23:19:28.467306+02 xFileSyncerx by Dan Lyke comments 0

Red Team test code for a client infiltration on the Python Package Index: Reversing Labs: Python downloader highlights noise problem in open source threat detection

The purpose of these packages was to test the client’s SOC (security operations center) both in terms of their ability to detect the suspicious call out to retrieve the second and third stage malware, and to detect (if possible) the lateral movement conducted by S2.py as it found and infected systems using the hard coded SSH credentials, the person behind the d3duct1v account indicated.

Entry: 2024-05-18 01:45:02.63098+02 I'm hearing a lot of chatter about by Dan Lyke comments 0

I'm hearing a lot of chatter about various encrypted messaging systems, and I want to adapt the first system that makes it easy for me to:

set up a server that uses my domain.
pipe incoming messages to processes, and send from my system.
retrieve and read my messages on a variety of devices.

In other words, give me the basic functionality that email used to have. And we can solve the spam problem with something like Brian Warner's PETMail proposal, though cryptologically verified senders will help with that.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python Cryptography ]

Entry: 2024-05-01 20:10:02.764373+02 So the legit uses for Bitcoin and by Dan Lyke comments 0

So the legit uses for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at this point have been pretty much reduced to malware and helping North Korea and Russia evade sanctions.

I've been thinking about LLMs in the context of cryptocurrencies, how much of the early hype was in glossing over the core flaws which make both technologies unsuitable for purpose.

And realized, with the rise of automated spam from LLMs, that the end uses of both technologies are the same. The parallels run deeper than I thought.

[ related topics: Spam Monty Python ]

Entry: 2024-05-01 18:52:36.980865+02 Rust, C, and parsing by Dan Lyke comments 0

It's not in the current development path, but some features prototyped for work use a prefix notation math system, and that's bugged me, and wrote a little framework that let me use Objective-C to specify a parser in Backus–Naur form, and because that created an in-memory tree and had some good intermediate information that I could use for command completion.

I've done stuff with the peg/leg recursive descent parser generators in C, and realized that I want the ability to introspect the parse tree better, for things like command completion and better error messages.

I've been both thinking that this is a tool I'd like to have generally for implementing configuration and scripting kinds of things, and that this might be my opportunity to learn a new language. I've been thinking that I should learn Rust, although as I dig through a lot of it it (and Go) feel pretty prescriptive, on the other hand I've also looked at some of the side effects that sneak into Perl and Python and realize that whipupitude is not always great for long term maintenance of the code.

Anyway, I started thinking about what it might look like in C++, and that reminded me of how much the language informs my design thinking, even as I think that many of those ideas are portable across languages. Which got me back towards Rust, although...

LogLog Games: Leaving Rust gamedev after 3 years is a fascinating look at how Rust's proscription about memory management can make it difficult to build. Especially as we start to think about "data oriented design" as a response to Object-Oriented design, maybe that isn't a great idea.

On the other side, The Brain Dump — One year of C is some musings about C99 (vs C89) and thinking about design and memory in C vs C++, and it's making me think that maybe I even need to go back to my preprocessor abusing ways and implement this thing in C.

Entry: 2024-02-21 20:12:23.767164+01 diversion from church maintenance, like bell polishing by Dan Lyke comments 0

Spain: Priest arrested in Don Benito for 'selling Viagra'

Via Girl on the Net @girlonthenet@mastodon.social who observed:

Looks like he'll be doing some...

... hard time.

😎

RT Thank Fuck January’s Over @guffo@topspicy.social

@girlonthenet I bet he received a stiff sentence

Chris (so far) @perigrin@nerdfight.online<?a>

@pdcawley @girlonthenet @guffo I’d be surprised if the church doesn’t rise to the occasion here and make a hard stand against this kind of dickery.

Thank Fuck January’s Over @guffo@topspicy.social

@girlonthenet @perigrin @pdcawley I assume the church has the situation firmly in hand. I'm surprised the priest managed to pull it off for so long!

RT Chris (so far) @perigrin@nerdfight.online

@guffo @girlonthenet @pdcawley Fair. I think we can agree he has likely shafted his future with the church … just tossed it out

Matt Jones @solearther@dustbuster.club

@guffo @girlonthenet @perigrin @pdcawley I expect there’ll be a lot of criticism of the higher clergy for allowing this to occur - we’re sure to see a lot of bishop bashing over this

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Current Events Monty Python ]

Entry: 2024-02-01 01:10:03.193914+01 thing I like about C Code written back by Dan Lyke comments 3

The thing I like about C? Code written back in the '80s compiles just fine. Perl? Same damned thing.

Python? Yeah, they've got tools to manage all of the issues.

C++? Sorry, namespace semantics changed subtly, and will subtly change back, because fuck you, that's why. And deities forbid you should try to find cross-platform ways to use Boost. Just code to POSIX and do your own smart pointer types from the ground up.

[ related topics: Perl Open Source Monty Python Python hubris ]

Entry: 2024-01-05 18:28:30.649288+01 Cold Blooded Software by Dan Lyke comments 0

Yes: Cold-blooded software.

A cold-blooded project is like the baby painted turtle. You can freeze it for a year and then pick it back up right where you left off.

A cold-blooded project uses boring technology. The build and test scripts don’t depend on external services that might change, break, or disappear entirely. It uses vendored dependencies.

Of the programming languages I use, Perl seems to be the best at this. C is okay. C++ less so (wait, that library interface changed again?). JavaScript and Python seem to be awful.

Entry: 2023-12-26 21:10:03.635558+01 I'm starting to feel like it's time for by Dan Lyke comments 3

I'm starting to feel like it's time for distributed callbacks/web mentions/etc again, if only to try to manage some of the spam better and encourage more bloggage or other resources.

Is the right way to do this Fediverse federation, or is there another modern technology for inbound links that people are playing with these days?

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Spam Monty Python ]

Entry: 2023-12-20 18:27:00.076667+01 WaPo CEO helped Prince Harry bury misconduct accusations by Dan Lyke comments 0

NPR: New 'Washington Post' CEO Will Lewis accused of Murdoch tabloid hacking cover-up

A very different picture of Lewis emerges from material presented in London courtrooms in recent months and reviewed by NPR. The man picked to lead the Post — a paper with the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness" — stands accused of helping to lead a massive cover-up of criminal activity when he was acting outside public view.

[ related topics: Invention and Design Law Current Events Monty Python ]

Entry: 2023-12-20 18:01:06.573407+01 Chevy dealership recommends Ford by Dan Lyke comments 0

Chevy dealership’s AI chatbot suggests Ford F-150 when asked for best truck. Chevrolet of Watsonville has been using an LLM chatbot that's capable of writing some pretty complex Python code (based on screenshots I've seen elsewhere), and... yeah...

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