I have a preprint out estimating how many scholarly papers are written using chatGPT etc? I estimate upwards of 60k articles (>1% of global output) published in 2023. https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16887
How can we identify this? Simple: there are certain words that LLMs love, and they suddenly start showing up *a lot* last year. Twice as many papers call something "intricate", big rises for "commendable" and "meticulous".
I really need to find something better than a flatbed for this, but it's definitely working.
Second 120 film today - spooling a little fiddlier but came out OK. Quality looks excellent for a 70-year-old camera & lens! Going to be a pain to scan, though...
The camera itself is surprisingly well-preserved for something that has "MADE IN GERMANY US-ZONE" on the back. Retail UK price was £10/4/4 for this model, which is pretty close to what I paid on ebay last week.
further #photography experiments: my first roll of medium-format film, on an untested 1950s folding camera, using Ilford XP2, which is not meant to be developed in normal B&W chemistry so I had to make up the times.
Amazingly, there are actually pictures coming out on the film. I mean, let's not assume they're in focus or reasonably exposed, but still.
Their competitors (the Leicester Chronicle rather than the Leicester Mercury) were a bit more pro. Get the feeling these two reviewers did not often agree.
This evening's delightful discovery is a regional English paper's slightly bemused review of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour.
"I must admit I was surprised at the heavy emphasis Dylan put on this type of music which has by no means become associated with him. But one must give him credit for such a brave display of his amazing versatility."
Good news: the following Monday it had dropped to just 11 patients on the critical list, and also the censor would grudgingly allow romance
Caffenol adventures 2.0: so much better! Same recipe but using real vitamin C not effervescent tablets, and adding about half a gram of potassium bromide to slow down the graininess. #photography
my foray into the wonderful world of weasels comes from having had the opportunity to photograph some on Wednesday: I am now absolutely in agreement with "something enormously satisfactory"
a weasel (~200g) was once observed recorded trying to mug a snowy owl (~2kg) for a mouse.
(do snowy owls normally eat weasels? why, yes, they do. did this stop it? no)
Next day:
* decide to shoot new roll of film, there's a game on, that should be fun
* ram knee into bathroom furniture and have to lie down for half an hour swearing gently
* limp down to stadium
* get home, discover yesterday's caffenol recipe was wrong anyway and also the fixer has been sat out all night
* mix fresh batch
* bloody hell it actually worked
Librarian and occasional researcher. Opinions of course my own. Scholarly communications, historic MPs, Wikipedia, inter alia other things. Misplaced Scot.