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Alf Fairweather

@boredofjam.bsky.social

It'll be retro computers, cats and swearing, but not necessarily in that order. And not enough of any of them for it to be much use.

162 Posts53 Follower95 Folgt
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 6d ago

Anthropic is out with new nonsense about Claude (or the collection of models called Claude) deserving moral consideration and/or be able to feel distress, so my inbox is filling up with journos asking me to comment. I've also got a day job, so here is a brief set of public comments on this: >>

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Iqbal Hussain@ihussainwriter.bsky.social · last wk.

It was so great to see you in the audience, Alf! A big enough surprise for me to forget your name! Thanks so much for being there. I’ll let you know when I’m next in Ipswich and we can have a proper catch up. The book festival was amazing. What a great thing for Ipswich.

Simon@simonxix.com · 2w ago

The genAI-created episode of Doctor Who is streamable at www.theunmadeseason.com and, though you wouldn't know it from the media coverage, is explicitly a right-wing reaction to The Doctor being alternately a woman and a Black man (source: www.tumblr.com/lizardsfroms...).

Also one of the few pieces of evidence that the writer of this show even exists is an interview he did with a Youtube channel (notably, he didn't actually *appear* in the interview but answered questions in the chat). A Youtube channel that does videos complaining about TV shows being "woke" and that British people are judged "more harshly" than asylum seekers. And one of his first comments is complaining about politics and "forced" diversity. Seems like coverage of this AI Doctor Who show should mention that but every single one takes the angle that it's a gee-whiz anorak making a show on his computer and isn't that exciting? How, exactly, inserting a new character into a made-up regeneration scene counts as bringing "a unmade season" to life I'm not sure. Why Doctor Who would have a unmade season and not a unmade series I'm also not sure.
The Spaceshipper 🚀@thespaceshipper.com · 2w ago

"An artificial intelligence-generated episode of Doctor Who was “pretty good,” according to BBC Director General Matt Brittin." What a desirable future that is. Soon there will be shows created entirely by machines for machines, which will generate tons of content!! Hallelujah.

Mr Benn@thebowlerhatman.bsky.social · 4w ago

Here is the full packaging for the upcoming Mr Benn dvd release. All the cartoons have been restored & look Fabulous. There are loads of extras, including a cd of Mr Benn - The Music. We hope you love it!! Please pass the word...

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Alf Fairweather@boredofjam.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Last night I dreamt that, much like when Hancock went missing and Seagoon took over on Hancock's Half Hour for a bit, Peter Falk got fed up with being Columbo for a while in the 70s so William Shatner took over the part for a few episodes and it was awesome.

Alf Fairweather@boredofjam.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Just started up @plex.tv & I've got the new version & it's utterly unbearable and deliberately broken. All customisation has gone. I've got ghost libraries I can't access but can't remove from my profile + it shits all its own online services bullshit onto the screen. This weekend: install Jellyfin.

Alf Fairweather@boredofjam.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I was playing Rainbow Islands last night on both the Amiga and the ZX Spectrum. Both are great conversions, the Speccy one is an incredible feat (well done, Graftgold). I needed reminding of the keys to play and came across this mysterious text in the instruction manual that says...

Alf Fairweather@boredofjam.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Having spent a number of hours asking Copilot to extract data marked "value=" from a 134 line XML file yesterday & it not being able to do it, I can assure you that 1. Writing the VBA to do it myself was faster & more satisfying and 2. OpenAI's latest rogue AI PR bullshit is just that: Bullshit.

Mark Moxon@markmoxon.bsky.social · 4mo ago

To help me test two-player #BBCMicro Elite, I’ve added “AI Pilot” as an option It uses the game’s 1984 tactics routines to fly player 2 (bottom view) It’s really interesting to watch Elite’s original “AI” from inside the other ship’s cockpit - in this case, an NPC Python #retrocomputing (1/3)