Dean L. Surkin

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Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
Regarding HAL - the novelization of "2001" makes it clear that directing HAL to lie to the crew about the mission was what made it psychotic....
Commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
I have read your Saturn's Children space-opera novels inspired in part by Heinlein's "Friday," so it didn't surprise me that much that you mentioned him as a writer you follow - even though your politics and perspective on women is...
Commented on Invisible Sun: Themes and Nightmares
Just a quick response to meander regarding the origin of the rim shot: the snare drum (used in a trap set) has a different sound when struck near the rim rather than near the center - less of the buzzing...
Commented on Public appearances in a time of pandemic
I'm on the board of a community orchestra in Westchester County, New York. We perform at a number of nursing homes, libraries, churches and synagogues. We have canceled our April performances (some of the venues canceled before we could even...
Commented on Book day!
Re: Zephro's question (comment #445): interesting coincidence, I was going to post the same question. Are Persephone Hazard and Michael Armstrong immune to K syndrome? Has this ever been discussed in the text?...
Commented on Book day!
Anyone notice how dangerous sex is in the Laundry-verse? In the real world, there are mere bacteria and viruses (some chronic, some deadly), but in the Laundry-verse, V-syndrome can be acquired by sex with a PHANG, and the Sleeper can...
Commented on Writer, Interrupted
I agree with Charlie's comments. I'm a tax attorney, working for an accounting firm, and when I'm researching and writing a memo, a "quick question" from a member of the firm easily takes at least half and hour - ten...
Commented on Spoiler Thread
As always, I love Mr. Stross's writing. I think I discovered two editing errors, however. I'm referring to the U.S. edition of the book. page 257, 4th paragraph: "Evan chews..." should that be Alex (Alex and Evan are otherwise alternating...

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Martin Rodgers commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
Again, I'm talking about search results. I've made that point well enough already. I see no point in repeating myself....
Martin Rodgers commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
One way or another, the next step seems to reading more history....
SFReader commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
Re: '... bellingcat's findings' 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...
DeMarquis commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
You made an active claim (that Bellingcat is unreliable). I am now asking you to back that up. If that's trolling then I couldn't be more proud to be a troll. 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...
Preppy commented on Made of lies (and more lies)
Well...with AI you need some insight into the technology. Note: Trust in the OWNER of the technology does not count! 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...

Responses to Comments from Dean L. Surkin

Common Misconceptions About Publishing—a series of essays about the industry I work in.
How I Got Here In The End —my non-writing autobiography, or what I did before becoming a full-time writer.
Unwirer—an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction.
Shaping the Future—a talk I gave on the social implications of Moore's Law.
Japan: first impressions — or, what I did on my holidays
Inside the MIT Media Lab—what it’s like to spend a day wandering around the Media Lab.
The High Frontier, Redux — space colonization: feasible or futile?
“Nothing like this will be built again”—inside a nuclear reactor complex.
Old blog—2003-2006 (RIP)

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