ArXiv has an interesting paper on mechanising online deanonymization attacks on large datasets. Even if you’re not interested in LLMs it’s still worth understanding what they’re capable of and how they may be deployed against you in the future.
And now for a slightly different tour of old York – York as seen by a visiting artist.
In 1952 the curator of York Art Gallery – Hans Hess – approached L. S. Lowry to paint a scene of York for the annual Evelyn Award. For this Lowry would be awarded the princely sum of £50 or – in 2025 money – around £1,250.
In the end, Lowery was to paint three images of York; two he offered to the art gallery to select from – ‘Clifford’s Tower, York‘ and ‘A View of York (from Tang Hall Bridge)‘ – and a third – ‘Wilson’s Terrace‘ – that he sold on to a private collector.
Of the two images offered to York Art Gallery, they selected ‘Clifford’s Tower, York‘ which, as of writing, can currently be seen in one of the upper galleries.
The Internet Archive has launched a WordPress link monitoring tool that will redirect your external links if they go down and will cease if they return.
It looks like the Pink Floyd team have commissioned a new music video to an old song. I like it and think the grainy Scifi-esque landscape works really well with the dystopian nature of Welcome to the Machine.
New toy time! Crossing the Ouse aims to be a comprehensive history of crossings of the River Ouse. I’ve only posed one entry so far – Fishergate Loop (1961) – but I have the various bits and pieces needed for several more.
Galileo’s watercolours of the various moon phases from 1609. Note how the terminator between the light and dark sides is not smooth – thus showing that the moon’s surface is also not smooth.