Ergative Absolutive

Ergative Absolutive

@ergative-abs.bsky.social

SFF booknerd; calligrapher; Islamic geometric art doer; figure skating appreciater; coffee-drinking, granola-baking, tofu-eating wokeratum; psycholinguist by vocation, fretful porpentine by aspiration. Nerds of a Feather: http://www.nerds-feather.com/

488 followers406 following2.5K posts

Ergative Absolutive reposted

thene
@thene.bsky.social

one more boost for folks checking in for #GPFigure #GPFrance #FigureSkating - FS4A will submit their open letter on trans inclusion on Thursday. Rec skaters and skating fans are welcome to sign. There is a real chance to pressure USFS into moving back in line with the ISU's trans-inclusive policy

thene@thene.bsky.social

#FigureSkating FS4A have created an open letter to USFS on trans inclusion in the sport - you can read and sign here even if you're not a USFS member www.figureskatingforall.org/open-letter

figureskatingforall.orgFigure Skating for All - Open LetterOpen Letter to US Figure Skating
Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

As someone who has chafed at the ridiculous measurement units for fresh ginger, specifically, I still find myself wondering whether Cloake had to phrase her reasoning exactly in this way.

Ergative Absolutive reposted

Mahmud El Sayed
@mahmudelsayed.bsky.social

What a great essay from @ergative-abs.bsky.social & @nerdsofafeather.bsky.social on the linguistic complexities of THE REPUBLIC OF MEMORY. Rise up, language (and anti-language) nerds! www.nerds-feather.com/2026/10/essa...

nerds-feather.comEssay: Language and Anti-Language in The Republic of Memorycover art by Raja Nandepu Republic of Memory , by Mahmud El-Sayed, previously reviewed on NOAF , is a deliciously rich text, full of chewy, ...
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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

11. Strekalin has the body shape, haircut, and unshaven jaw of a football jock after a night out on the town, but he uses his arms and hands so gracefully, and commits so hard to the music, that it makes for a surprising contrast between appearance and behaviour.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

12. French videographers continue to be an insult to figure skating everywhere. They've given up on those godawful overhead shots from a few years ago, but JUST ONCE it would be nice to see a spin from start to finish without a gratuitous fade-cut and pointless zoom-in on, like, a hand.

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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

8. Ami Nakai is brilliant and charming and I love her. She reminds me of Kazuki Tomono from a few years back, when he was aiming for fun and smiles, rather than lyrical beauty. 9. Anastasia Gubanova tends to opt for cheap sentimentality, but she does have a good face to emote for it.

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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

7. The *reason* I don't know for sure what Lara Naki Gutmann's free skate theme was, is that Chris Howarth is utterly useless as a commentator. It's astonishing how bad he is. I know people don't like Tara Lipinsky & Johnny Weir in US broadcasts, but I can't imagine they'd be worse than Howarth.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

(Why don't people like Lipinsky & Weir as commentators? I've heard one problem is that they get *too* technical in their discussions, but, like, isn't that what expert commentators are *for*? I would welcome someone to explain what all the YNNYNYNYNNYNY means in the Golden Waltz scoring box.)

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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

6. I'm not entirely sure what the theme of Lara Naki Gutmann's free skate is, but I am choosing to interpret it as being about an arctic explorer who is enchanted with the beauty of the polar landscape and then gets mauled to death and his head chomped off by a polar bear. Loved it.

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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

3. Does Minkyu Su know what his music is about? Because he's skating rage against the gods for killing one's beloved in a cold unfeeling cruel world, and the song is singing, 'hey, girl, I love you, don't leave me'.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

1. I'm delighted about Adam Siao Him Fa, but I heard a rumour that he once offended Running Edge's mother at a party, and it's really time those two put it behind them and became friends again.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

2. Boo Eteri Tutberidze, of course, but it's really striking how the Russian approach to singles is 'what if everything were ice jumping?'; whereas the approach to pairs is a much more restrained 'what if pairs skaters didn't suck abysmally at the simplest jumps'?

Ergative Absolutive reposted

Tim Byrne
@tbyrne75.bsky.social
Vulture@vulture.com

‘Wicker’ stars Alexander Skarsgård as a man made entirely of wicker, complete with a rock-hard wicker dick. But what about splinters? Bacteria? Degradation? Would it be advisable, from a sexual-health perspective, to mount a basket dick? We asked a gynecologist: vulture.visitlink.me/DNQwX5

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

"People-pleasing has been moved to Legacy Support and will no longer receive security updates." I cannot wait for this upgrade.

McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net

"Metabolism has entered Museum Mode and is now preserving every carbohydrate for future generations." buff.ly/guRUchT

mcsweeneys.netRelease Notes: Woman™ Version 51.0“Thank you for updating to Woman™ 51.0. This release includes important security updates, several unexpected hardware changes, a completely redesigned relati...
Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

A memory that, for some reason, has turned into a core memory is watching a movie in chemistry class (Bill Nye?) in which the point was that everything is made of chemicals. An astronaut said something like, 'I'm [name], and I'm made of chemicals--' bonks his helmet '--and so is my helmet!'

Dr. SkySkull@drskyskull.bsky.social

This is ragebait so not directly quoting it, but the question misses the point: studying those topics trains you to THINK, which ia something EVERYONE needs to know regardless if you use those specific skills.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Gabriel -- Gabe! Gabe! The bust is falling over-- get the bust! GETTHEBUST--goddammit do you know what a pain it is to sweep up plaster dust?

Dr. Peter Paul Rubens@peterpaulrubens.bsky.social

Died (alas!) on this day 1667, in Amsterdam: Gabriel Metsu. A fine painter in every sense of the word. Here in 1655, preparing to paint you.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Ok, everyone, hold your horses: This actually seems like a *good* use of AI. AI is a pattern-matching algorithm. You train it on validated data and ask it to spit out some output that is informed by the data patterns. Not all AI is LLMs and image generation trained on stolen data.

theguardian.comBurnham to reveal plans for AI unit to tackle wildfires after scorching summerPM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft
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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

However, IF they work, the benefit is so easily and directly measurable, and on such an enormous scale, that this is a very different conversation than resisting the corporate assholes who insist you use copilot to write your emails for you.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Ok, everyone, hold your horses: This actually seems like a *good* use of AI. AI is a pattern-matching algorithm. You train it on validated data and ask it to spit out some output that is informed by the data patterns. Not all AI is LLMs and image generation trained on stolen data.

theguardian.comBurnham to reveal plans for AI unit to tackle wildfires after scorching summerPM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft
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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

This is one of those rare uses of AI where I think it's worth trialling them, and seeing whether the advantages of early detection and suppression of wildfires is worth the cost of running the data centres.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

I'm not saying it will work out! The models might prove to waste more time and resources with false alarms than traditional spotting methods. Or they might miss signals that traditional methods would have caught. Maybe they'll need to be scrapped.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Ok, everyone, hold your horses: This actually seems like a *good* use of AI. AI is a pattern-matching algorithm. You train it on validated data and ask it to spit out some output that is informed by the data patterns. Not all AI is LLMs and image generation trained on stolen data.

theguardian.comBurnham to reveal plans for AI unit to tackle wildfires after scorching summerPM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft
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Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Yes, data centres exacerbate climate change and local environmental harms that can increase the risk of wildfires. But, like, so does fuel to run helicopters that drop suppressant on wildfires! We don't criticise that fossil fuel use. We recognize that the benefit outweights the harm.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Further these types of models are not like the ones that result in deskilling and reliance on sycophancy and so on. These models are offering a genuinely new capacity that humans themselves lack (ESPECIALLY in the UK, for which wildfires are a new thing)

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Ok, everyone, hold your horses: This actually seems like a *good* use of AI. AI is a pattern-matching algorithm. You train it on validated data and ask it to spit out some output that is informed by the data patterns. Not all AI is LLMs and image generation trained on stolen data.

theguardian.comBurnham to reveal plans for AI unit to tackle wildfires after scorching summerPM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft
View full thread
Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

In a world where some wildfire prevention still requires putting people in stations on the top of a mountain looking for smoke, why should we not try to deploy a superbly effective pattern-matching algorithm to do some pattern matching at a scale that individual humans cannot replicate?

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

FURTHERMORE, this is not just 'throw AI at the problem.' This is part of a systematic response by the government to improve wildfire response in a number of different ways. 1. £45m for PPE 2. Make planes/helicopters available for firefighting in difficult terrain 3. £25m to restore peat wetlands

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Ok, everyone, hold your horses: This actually seems like a *good* use of AI. AI is a pattern-matching algorithm. You train it on validated data and ask it to spit out some output that is informed by the data patterns. Not all AI is LLMs and image generation trained on stolen data.

theguardian.comBurnham to reveal plans for AI unit to tackle wildfires after scorching summerPM will also announce funding for specialised protective gear and the deployment of military aircraft
Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

This is not spitting out slop. This is a system to train a model on tons and tons of data about satellite images that do or do not correspond to something that turned out to be a wildfire, and using the model to determine whether new imagery matches 'bad fire' patterns.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Ok, I've been seeing all the jokes about security keys and 4 and I assume it's related to the PHP issues this week, but can someone explain the connection to me? The vibe around the discussion feels a bit like 'look at this wildly stupid thing that someone in charge of security did'.

Ergative Absolutive reposted

Kingfisher & Wombat
@tkingfisher.com

@aptshadow.bsky.social I need you to put down the Lathe of Heaven and back away.

Amy Feldman@amyfeldman7.bsky.social

*NEW* Colossal Biosciences’ Ben Lamm and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey team up on a new startup to genetically engineer war dogs for the military. Warhound comes out of stealth at $1.2B valuation For @forbes.com with @iainmartin.bsky.social and @mhunterhart.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

forbes.comBillionaires Palmer Luckey And Ben Lamm Spin Up Startup To Genetically Engineer Military DogsBen Lamm of de-extinction startup Colossal has teamed up with Palmer Luckey’s team at Anduril to create a dog that’s optimized for military use. The new “warhounds” will be cloned and gene edited.
Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

Reading The Hunger Games, which somehow I've managed never to read before, and I'm still a bit annoyed when Katniss remarks something to the effect of 'oh, I'm so small and little; half the girls are bigger than me!' Yes, Katniss. That's how averages work.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

I saw a crafter who makes her own beads using a version of this out of silicone. She has various little mats with these grooves in them of various sizes, and she made perfectly round beads by exactly this process.

Surgeons' Hall Museum@surgeonshall.bsky.social

This is a 19th century pill machine. A "pill mass' would be rolled into a paste like pipe and placed across the brass corrugated sections. The handle would then be put in place and moved over its rail to divide the pipe into equally sized parts which would be rolled into pills.

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

See, when an entire season is predicated on the fact that the agent who we saw get shot in the head is not actually dead, it's hard for me to actually believe that finale is for real. #SlowHorses

Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

So, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, Guinea-Bissau played along long enough to get the study-funded vaccines into the country. Then they publicly denounced the study and seized the vaccines to use as part of their universal vaccination protocol. Well played!

Melody Schreiber@melodyschreiber.com

The government of Guinea-Bissau now has control of the vaccines meant for the trial, after searching the Danish researchers' offices on Monday. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

theguardian.comControversial US-backed vaccine trial in African newborns haltedHepatitis B study in Guinea-Bissau that was to be funded by CDC and that drew global backlash ‘will not move forward’
Ergative Absolutive
@ergative-abs.bsky.social

I thought A Botanical Daughter, by Noah Medlock, was a weird, gothic, surprisingly gruesome treat, and made a very odd but appropriate counterpart to read with @sarahgailey.bsky.social's Spread Me, for reasons that will become clear only if you buy and read both of them (hint hint).

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