michael lascarides
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mlascarides.bsky.social
michael lascarides
@mlascarides.bsky.social
140 followers 310 following 250 posts
Art tinkerer, library dweller, immigrant. Thinking a lot about how to prove libraries are worth keeping around. Ōtepoti.
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mlascarides.bsky.social
I've been using this slide in library presentations for a decade and a half now. Still more relevant than ever.
Chart showing the switch from information scarcity to information abundance (around 2000), and that both situations make libraries necessary.
October 8, 2025 at 1:46 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
And the entrance to Dunedin Airport.
Satellite photo of the intersection of Miller Rd and Airport Rd in Dunedin.
September 15, 2025 at 8:48 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
As good a time as any to remind Dunners folks to join us at the Portobello Spring Market Day tomorrow!
Ad for Portobello Spring Market Day - 14 September - Coronation Hall - 10am-2pm
September 12, 2025 at 9:04 PM
mlascarides.bsky.social
Hard pass, Zoom.
Not hearing anything? Turn up volume.
July 31, 2025 at 8:25 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
Latest art.
Abstract, detailed artwork. Pinkish circles and squares on black and blue background. Abstract, detailed artwork. Orange rings on flat blue background. Abstract, detailed artwork. Warm reds and yellows on tan background. Abstract, detailed artwork. Dark grays and warm reds and yellows on tan background.
July 18, 2025 at 10:25 PM
mlascarides.bsky.social
Brazil, for that unforgettable hat.
July 13, 2025 at 7:29 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
This chart from the cited paper also shows that the highest success rate on *any* single sub-task or single platform was 43%.
Two bar charts, titled Comparing OpenHands success rate across platforms (left) and task categories (right), from research paper entitled TheAgentCompany: Benchmarking LLM Agents on Consequential Real World Tasks.
July 6, 2025 at 2:50 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
Pretty remarkable that Amazon, with a decade of experience with Alexa, arguably the most "agentic" consumer product currently out there, is absolutely nowhere with AI agents.
And the vast majority of its competing agents did substantially worse. OpenAI's GPT-4o, for example, had a failure rate of 91.4 percent, while Meta's Llama-3.1-405b had a failure rate of 92.6 percent. Amazon's Nova-Pro-v1 failed a ludicrous 98.3 percent of its office tasks.
July 6, 2025 at 2:46 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
Sandbox.
Still from Fury Road showing apocalyptic desert wasteland.
June 25, 2025 at 10:13 PM
mlascarides.bsky.social
There's a corner that goes around a headland between Macandrew Bay and Broad Bay on the Otago Peninsula. Dunners slides out of view behind, and the most beautiful view of Hereweka (Harbour Cone) appears. Magical, triply so if there's a full moon comin' up.
View of Hereweka Harbour Cone, Broad Bay, NZ.
June 13, 2025 at 7:08 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
One of my fave pics I took at the 2004 RNC protest, lol. (Not sharing face for obvious reasons but this dude had a GREAT smile.)
Protester at 2004 RNC in New York holding sign "US OUT OF NY"
June 8, 2025 at 1:29 AM
mlascarides.bsky.social
Ursula Le Guin, from "On Rules of Writing, or, Riffing on Rechy"
As for “Write what you know,” I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them. I got my knowledge of them, as I got whatever knowledge I have of the hearts and minds of human beings, through imagination working on observation. Like any other novelist. All this rule needs is a good definition of “know.”
May 14, 2025 at 10:23 PM
mlascarides.bsky.social
“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.” ― Philip K. Dick, Ubik
April 21, 2025 at 7:47 AM