Did you know I married a terrorist? Really? That's what she was convicted of (fucked over by her lying well-paid lawer), and spent 241 days in jail in Brevard Co, FL?
]]>[*] I could so easily have checked, but I'd want to do it by looking at something other than Wikipedia. Fortunately, 'founder of mormonism' was a useful search term. (This time.) Shame I didn't use it when I should have.
]]>The Mormon trail starts in Palmyra New York, then goes to Ohio, Nauvoo Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, then Utah. So somewhere along there your wife's ancestors had trouble. Your wife should use a t-shirt cannon to pelt the grounds of an LDS temple with bags of coffee as a protest andrequest for reconciliation.
This is where I get sad that I don't know more about western New York state. That area's known historically as the "burned over district" from 1878 on. "I found that region of country what, in the western phrase, would be called, a "burnt district." There had been, a few years previously, a wild excitement passing through that region, which they called a revival of religion, but which turned out to be spurious" (see link for source. It was important in "abolition, women's rights, utopian social experiments, anti-Masonry, Mormonism, prohibition, vegetarianism, and Seventh-Day Adventism," as well as the Shakers and American Spiritualism.
So depending on your frame of reference, it was either the countercultural capitol of the US in the 19th century (akin to California), an untapped Lovecraft Country (akin to Tim Power's take on SoCal)...or both.
]]>No cite then, got it.
]]>Sounds great - and how do you replicate anything if you're starved for funding? My impression is that funding is getting tighter and historically/typically goes to new ideas and not to replicating already published research."
That is a very serious problem, and I don't have a solution. I just play the cards the world deals to me as best I can. It means that we are missing knowledge that we could obtain, but that's a systemic problem that probably requires a systemic solution.
One game I know used to be played was to combine a replication along with a new variation on the old research, but of course that isn't going to be applicable to every potential research program.
]]>It astounds me that anyone would rely on a list of search results as of itself indicating anything. Yes, read some of the results and try to track down the truth, since that's what we have to work with, but using a list of results as evidence in support of a conclusion? That's even weaker than citing a wikipedia article as a primary source.
]]>In particular, there is VERY strong reason to believe that the initial government information did, indeed, come from Bellingcat.
When it was FIRST blamed on the Russians, both the police and Border Farce stated publicly that they could not say anything but were looking at their records, and it was reported (and not denied) that the counter-spy services were not tracking suspicious Russians (including those two) reliably. And I don't believe that the UK had a mole in the Kremlin, and was so cavalierly prepared to disclose that fact.
So, let's turn it round, exactly what independent evidence do YOU have that the government had independent evidence, and what was it? Note that I am talking about the time before the police said anything (I can't remember if Border Farce ever did, publicly).
The timing of Bellincat's claims, together with the fact that the video camera information Bellingcat relied on is supposed to be restricted to the police and government security services, raises some interesting questions, but that's another issue, which I notice that people are very reluctant to raise.
]]>probably just coincidence tho
justsaynotocuibono ]]>Yes, I often need to add or modify a search term, sometimes several times, before I get useful results.
Giving up and trying another search engine also happens. E.g. I've found many computer science papers via CiteSeerX, but sometimes there's a more direct path to the paper I want: the author's own online archive. For any history, I don't rely on Wikipedia to help me.
E.g. the article on John Smith looks like it was written by Mormons. I.e. it differs from what some historians may tell you. The BBC R4 In Our Time episode on John Smith differs regarding his wife. So the Wikepedia article looks like a case of DARVO, but who knows? Who should we trust, historians or Wikipedia editors?
"Trust, but verify" both. For most things Wikipedia is good enough - historians wrote those historical articles.
Wikipedia does lock down some articles that are known for problematic editing. The pages on Mormonism & Joseph Smith are among those locked down pages.
]]>Not familiar with them so looked them up on Wikipedia - seems like a legit news org. Also checked a couple of sources/citations on that Wikipedia page - Bellingcat won the European Press Prize in 2019.
https://www.europeanpressprize.com/shortlists/year-2019-2/
FYI - Years ago Wikipedia was tested vs. Britannica for science info: Britannica was only slightly better -- the testers found 4 errors on Wikipedia. Geeze - who knew that open-sourcing/citizen science writing could be such an effective means of gathering and distributing info/knowledge! My guess is that Wikipedia also has a bunch of reasonably good editors who sort through and verify articles/citations.
BTW - I'm a Wikipedia supporter/donor because I strongly believe that everyone on this planet should have access to good quality information/data. (Looks like they're getting there: Wikipedia articles are currently available in 326 different languages.)
]]>And, no, I'm not going to do your research for you. Where do you get the information that you are basing your conclusions on? If you don't have specific sources, or if you don't remember them anymore, just say so.
As for my source of information, I happen to possess Eliot Higgins book "We Are Bellingcat." In it, he actually opens his introduction with a six page description of the aftermath of the Skripal attack. He claims that BC didn't identify the actual identities of the assassins until after their appearance on Russian TV. He also claims that UK police previously released pictures of the two to the public, asking for help in identifying them. I can't vouch for the accuracy of his claims, but I know where my information is coming from.
]]>Technology components: (1) Neural networks (2) Training (3) Large Language Models (LLM)
Given the above there are some problems with AI, not all of them technical: (4) Neural networks generally cannot explain their conclusions (but see item #6) (5) Defect #5 gets worse when the neural network is learning AFTER training (6) Large Language Models may (will?) contain an unknown number of falsehoods (7) Only hugely wealthy organisations can own AI tools (Meta, Amazon, Microsoft...). Notably small orgaisations do not have resource to build (steal?) a suitable LLM... (See item #6, plus the price of entry problem)
Did I mention trust?
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