Jeff Duntemann's Contrapositive Diary Rotating Header Image

March 17th, 2025:

Odd Lots

  • Stumbled on this by accident: A YouTube group that offers audio book summaries/reviews, doing their thing on my x64 assembly book. Short listen (2:40), and not a bad summary for such a short clip.
  • And while we’re talking YouTube, here’s a podcast interview with me now on YouTube, during which I talk about all kinds of things with Jim Lawless.
  • I recently discovered British classical composer Doreen Carwithen 1922-2003, and on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, allow me to suggest the third movement of her Suffolk Suite, composed in 1964. Although nominally a tune for Morris dancers, Suffolk Suite III has a decidedly Irish air about it. It’s on YouTube, as are the other movements of the suite if you’re interested.
  • Carol and I attend St. Patrick’s parish here in Scottsdale, and every Friday during Lent they have a fish fry in the parish hall. The fish was excellent, and I allowed myself to eat the fries that came with it, carbs though they be. (Once a week won’t kill me.) One of the parish volunteers wore a green T-shirt with “Pat on the back” printed in front, and an old portrait of St. Patrick himself reproduced (in white) on the back. Clever enough for a giggle or two. Again, the food was great and we sat at a table with friends, talking about all sorts of things.
  • Michael Covington sent me a link to an article by Stephen Wolfram in which he explains what ChatGPT is doing and how it works. It’s not cutting-edge, having been published in early 2023, but it’s a good place to start if you want to know what’s inside the concept of large language models (LLMs).