Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Let’s check in on the downtown Portland webcam at 6:08pm PT on this Sunday evening. Looks awful…ly boring.

Downtown Portland webcam at 6:08 PM PT showing nothing happening.

October 13, 2025 at 2:29 AM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

One more time, if you don’t know enough about a subject to tell if an LLM, like ChatGpt, is giving you fake information, you shouldn’t be using it. While they can be helpful to give to you a starting point, their output cannot assumed to be factual.

The researchers demonstrated that hallucinations stemmed from statistical properties of language model training rather than implementation flaws. The study established that “the generative error rate is at least twice the IIV misclassification rate,” where IIV referred to “Is-It-Valid” and demonstrated mathematical lower bounds that prove AI systems will always make a certain percentage of mistakes, no matter how much the technology improves.

September 22, 2025 at 2:40 AM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

A 9-0 ruling in May of last year by the same justices who sit on the court today.

September 18, 2025 at 7:36 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Last night I saw the newly remastered and restored version 60th Anniversary version of The Sound of Music on the big screen in a theater. In addition to looking better than ever, it included this scene that still applies in our time.

September 18, 2025 at 4:05 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Why is there a plague doctor in the room?

September 17, 2025 at 8:00 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

September 17, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

It’s important for everyone to understand LLMs are not artificial intelligence. They’re sophisticated language predictor algorithms, an advanced version of the type-ahead on your phone. LLMs understand nothing about what they are writing.

Large Language Models (LLMs) work by using deep learning and massive datasets to predict the next word in a sequence, which is how they generate human-like text. After processing text inputs (which are first "tokenized" into smaller pieces), a transformer architecture analyzes these tokens to understand patterns and context, creating word embeddings that represent meaning. Based on these learned relationships, the LLM then calculates probabilities for the most likely next word, assembling them into coherent sentences and paragraphs to form a response.

September 15, 2025 at 12:50 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Nightmare fuel - no buttons whatsoever. You have to look at the display to do everything including critical functions like turn on the defrost. Luxury should be more like 👇

Dashboard of 1964 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III Saloon

September 10, 2025 at 4:48 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Oregon Trial game you have died of dysentery

September 6, 2025 at 1:11 AM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Novak Djokovic Dances To 'Soda Pop' Song From 'KPop Demon Hunters'

September 6, 2025 at 1:07 AM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

160 years ago today. Writ of Habeas Corpus for Treason of Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
To the Marshal of the District of West Tennessee--Greeting:

You are Hereby Commanded to take the body of Nathan B. Forrest if it to be found in your District, and him safely keep, so that you have him before the judge of the Circuit Court of the United States, at a term of said Court, to be held for the District aforesaid, at the Court House in the City of Memphis, on the first Monday in March next, then and there to answer the United States, on a Bill of Presentment against him, for Treason. Herein fail not, and have you then and there this writ.

Witness, The Hon. Salmon P. Chase (Roger B. Taney is crossed out), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the seal of said Circuit Court, this First Monday in September 1865 and 90 year of American Independence.

A.S Mitchell (signature) Clerk.
Isaac Morrison (signature) D. Clerk.

September 4, 2025 at 1:18 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Fighting over a slice of the pie.

September 3, 2025 at 5:25 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

The ABA states the following in their Criminal Justice Standards for the Prosecution Function. In my opinion, if prosecutors are repeatedly rejected by grand juries, they are failing to live up to that primary duty to seek justice not convictions.

The primary duty of the prosecutor is to seek justice within the bounds of the law, not merely to convict. The prosecutor serves the public interest and should act with integrity and balanced judgment to increase public safety both by pursuing appropriate criminal charges of appropriate severity, and by exercising discretion to not pursue criminal charges in appropriate circumstances. The prosecutor should seek to protect the innocent and convict the guilty, consider the interests of victims and witnesses, and respect the constitutional and legal rights of all persons, including suspects and defendants.

August 27, 2025 at 3:11 PM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

Texas v Johnson has entered the chat.

The Government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable, even where our flag is involved. Nor may a State foster its own view of the flag by prohibiting expressive conduct relating to it, since the Government may not permit designated symbols to be used to communicate a limited set of messages. Moreover, this Court will not create an exception to these principles protected by the First Amendment for the American flag alone.

August 26, 2025 at 1:19 AM

Van Firth

@vanfirth.bsky.social

It's weird to think it might be a 17th century family group of a man, woman and 3 children that was chopped up to remove the woman, and then over-painted to hide the change.