Category: Misc

We went camping recently with some friends and family at a place called McRae Point, on the northern end of Lake Simcoe, and since it looked like it was going to be a great weekend — sunny and about 32 Celsius — I decided to bring my kayak just in case it was a good paddling day. And it was! I pushed off in the mid-afternoon and as I rounded the point heading south, I saw a small island ahead of me that didn’t look inhabited, and it was about a mile and a half away, so I thought I would paddle over to it and take a look around. When I took a break from paddling, I looked it up on Google Maps and saw it was called Strawberry Island (previous names: Anatari, Lundy’s Island and Gwillam’s Island).

The websites I found when I searched the name said that it was originally owned by a Great Lakes steamship captain in the 1800s named Charles McInnes, and that he had built a small summer resort on the island, and then paid someone to build a small steamship that could hold about 220 people, so he could ferry guests over to the island from the mainland. A local historian writes that “Captain McInnes’ intention was to build Strawberry Island into a first-class resort and to use The Orillia to ferry hotel guests from the Orillia town dock out to his new wharf at the resort. The resort was built up over a few years to include a large hotel, a dance hall, walking trails, six cottages, bathing houses, picnic lawns, a waterworks system powered by windmill, boats and fishing tackle and an athletic field.”

For several years the resort played host to some major events, and as the article notes “Another major drawing card for the resort was that it was ‘wet.’ Orillia and many surrounding towns did not allow liquor sales at the time but Strawberry Island was part of Ramara Township where the sale of alcohol was permitted.” Apparently this worked for a short time, but it never became a very good business and Captain McInnes tried several different methods to keep it going but eventually he died and his son Jack and family used it as a personal summer getaway for a few years and ran some summer events using the steamship.

Then the island was sold to the Basilian Fathers, a Catholic religious organization, in about 1922 and they built a chapel using the lumber from the six guesthouses and a bunkhouse residence, and used it for religious retreats for decades. There were tennis courts and an athletic field and several different residences were added. Apparently Pope John Paul II stayed there in 2002 and arrived by helicopter, which landed on the athletic field. Eventually the Basilians were looking to get rid of the island and sold it to a development company that wanted to build condos or time-share cottages or something of that nature, but there was a lot of resistance from the local residents and from officials with the county.

So today the island sits empty, except for the ruins of the cabins and guesthouses and the main building that I assume was where people ate dinner, etc. I pulled my kayak up on what looked like a sandy beach, but was actually a massive pile of tiny seashells that was about four feet deep and stretched for about 30 feet. And then I tried to find a way through the underbrush that had grown up, because I could see the roof of a building about 50 feet away from me. The brambles and bushes and underbrush was over my head, but somehow I pushed my way through and saw what must have been a guest cabin for about six guests or possibly families.

I made my way up the concrete steps and avoided some holes in the floorboards and looked inside and it looked like a bomb had gone off — but I expect what had probably happened was groups of teenagers had used it for a party site and/or a place to break things and cause general mayhem. There was still a couch on the porch but it had the stuffing torn out of it and there was broken glass everywhere. There was still furniture inside the building as well, in a similar state, and debris was thick on the floor. Making my way out, I headed right and there were the ruins of a much larger building as well, which I assume was the dining hall and possibly some rooms up above. Much of the roof was missing or had slid off onto the ground, and there was a metal fire-escape type ladder leading up to the second story but it ended in mid-air. The deck was in such rough shape I was afraid to step up onto it.

I looked around a bit, and afterwards I paddled all the way around the island, but I couldn’t see any sign of a chapel or other guesthouses. They must have been lost to the jungle of trees and shrubs that had taken over. To be honest, the whole thing gave me a Blair Witch Project kind of creepy feel, even in the middle of a bright sunny day, so I made my way back through the brambles and back to my kayak and headed back to McRae Point.

We went camping recently with some friends and family at a place called McRae Point, on the northern end of Lake Simcoe, and since it looked like it was going to be a great weekend — sunny and about 32 Celsius — I decided to bring my kayak just in case it was a good paddling day. And it was! I pushed off in the mid-afternoon and as I rounded the point heading south, I saw a small island ahead of me that didn’t look inhabited, and it was about a mile and a half away, so I thought I would paddle over to it and take a look around. When I took a break from paddling, I looked it up on Google Maps and saw it was called Strawberry Island (previous names: Anatari, Lundy’s Island and Gwillam’s Island).

The websites I found when I searched the name said that it was originally owned by a Great Lakes steamship captain in the 1800s named Charles McInnes, and that he had built a small summer resort on the island, and then paid someone to build a small steamship that could hold about 220 people, so he could ferry guests over to the island from the mainland. A local historian writes that “Captain McInnes’ intention was to build Strawberry Island into a first-class resort and to use The Orillia to ferry hotel guests from the Orillia town dock out to his new wharf at the resort. The resort was built up over a few years to include a large hotel, a dance hall, walking trails, six cottages, bathing houses, picnic lawns, a waterworks system powered by windmill, boats and fishing tackle and an athletic field.”

Continue reading “Paddling Lake Simcoe and a deserted island”

From Daily Good: “Somewhere in West Tennessee, not far from Graceland, nine women – or “The 9 Nanas,” as they prefer to be called – gather in the darkness of night. At 4am they begin their daily routine – a ritual that no one, not even their husbands, knew about for 30 years. They have one mission and one mission only: to create happiness. And it all begins with baked goods. Over the next three hours, The 9 Nanas (who all consider themselves sisters, despite what some of their birth certificates say) will whip up hundreds of pound cakes, as part of a grand scheme to help those in need. And then, before anyone gets as much as a glimpse of them, they’ll disappear back into their daily lives. The only hint that may remain is the heavenly scent of vanilla, lemon and lime, lingering in the air. Even the UPS driver, who picks up hundreds of packages at a time, has no clue what these women, who range in age from 54 to 72, are doing.”

Two men dressed as women in public led to a landmark show trial in Britain in 1870

From Wikipedia: “Thomas Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park were Victorian cross-dressers. From upper-middle-class families, both enjoyed wearing women’s clothes and both enjoyed taking part in theatrical performances, playing the women’s roles when they did so. Boulton and Park were indiscreet when they cross-dressed in public, and came to the attention of police. They were under surveillance for a year before they were arrested in 1870, while in drag, after leaving a theatre. When they appeared in court the morning after the arrest they were still clothed in the women’s dresses from the previous evening. They were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy, a crime that carried a maximum sentence of life with hard labour. The case came before the Court of the Queen’s Bench the following year, and they were found not guilty after the prosecution failed to establish that they had anal sex.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “The Nine Nanas kept their good deeds a secret for thirty years”

From Daily Good: “Somewhere in West Tennessee, not far from Graceland, nine women – or “The 9 Nanas,” as they prefer to be called – gather in the darkness of night. At 4am they begin their daily routine – a ritual that no one, not even their husbands, knew about for 30 years. They have one mission and one mission only: to create happiness. And it all begins with baked goods. Over the next three hours, The 9 Nanas (who all consider themselves sisters, despite what some of their birth certificates say) will whip up hundreds of pound cakes, as part of a grand scheme to help those in need. And then, before anyone gets as much as a glimpse of them, they’ll disappear back into their daily lives. The only hint that may remain is the heavenly scent of vanilla, lemon and lime, lingering in the air. Even the UPS driver, who picks up hundreds of packages at a time, has no clue what these women, who range in age from 54 to 72, are doing.”

Two men dressed as women in public led to a landmark show trial in Britain in 1870

From Wikipedia: “Thomas Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park were Victorian cross-dressers. From upper-middle-class families, both enjoyed wearing women’s clothes and both enjoyed taking part in theatrical performances, playing the women’s roles when they did so. Boulton and Park were indiscreet when they cross-dressed in public, and came to the attention of police. They were under surveillance for a year before they were arrested in 1870, while in drag, after leaving a theatre. When they appeared in court the morning after the arrest they were still clothed in the women’s dresses from the previous evening. They were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy, a crime that carried a maximum sentence of life with hard labour. The case came before the Court of the Queen’s Bench the following year, and they were found not guilty after the prosecution failed to establish that they had anal sex.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “The Nine Nanas kept their good deeds a secret for thirty years”

You might have noticed that there’s a tiny bit of anxiety about artificial intelligence these days — its design, its implementation, its uses and misuses, its reason for existing at all. Is it ruining society? Is it making our kids stupid? Is it going to kill us? Etc. A lot of this anxiety takes the form of articles about terrible things that AI is either doing directly or is somehow involved in. AI is stealing the work of underpaid artists! AI is telling people to put glue on their pizza! AI is convincing people they are gods or have supernatural powers! AI is making people commit suicide! And so on. I should point out that I’m not making light of any of these outcomes (except maybe the pizza thing), and especially not the last two — it’s not easy when someone you love is emotionally disturbed or mentally ill, and the effects of these kinds of disorders can be profound.

That said, however, I think there’s a problem with much of this kind of coverage of artificial intelligence, and it’s similar to some of the early coverage of the internet, or of many other new technologies (the printing press, for example). I recall a spate of stories blaming Craigslist for thefts and murders and a host of other things, because the thief or killer had used Craigslist to find the house they robbed or the person they murdered. This got lots of clicks for the outlets in question, but it never made sense to me — what if the thief or murderer made contact with someone using the phone, or a newspaper classified ad? Would we blame AT&T, or the publisher, or the guy who sold the classified?

Maybe we would do the latter if the ad said “Male, 34, looking for house to rob,” or “Wanted: someone to murder,” but apart from that it seems odd to blame the intermediary, unless they could have anticipated the eventual outcome. If someone puts glue on their pizza because ChatGPT tells them to, whose fault is that? It’s clear that the AI screwed up in providing this advice — although in many cases the advice comes from human beings making jokes or engaging in pranks, rather than an AI confabulation (as AI pioneer Geoff Hinton likes to call them). But a human being still had to decide to do something stupid as a result. If you try to use a child’s inflatable bath toy as a life preserver and die, is the manufacturer at fault for not including a warning label advising you not to?

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “We shouldn’t blame AI for the stupid things that people do”

You might have noticed that there’s a tiny bit of anxiety about artificial intelligence these days — its design, its implementation, its uses and misuses, its reason for existing at all. Is it ruining society? Is it making our kids stupid? Is it going to kill us? Etc. A lot of this anxiety takes the form of articles about terrible things that AI is either doing directly or is somehow involved in. AI is stealing the work of underpaid artists! AI is telling people to put glue on their pizza! AI is convincing people they are gods or have supernatural powers! AI is making people commit suicide! And so on. I should point out that I’m not making light of any of these outcomes (except maybe the pizza thing), and especially not the last two — it’s not easy when someone you love is emotionally disturbed or mentally ill, and the effects of these kinds of disorders can be profound.

That said, however, I think there’s a problem with much of this kind of coverage of artificial intelligence, and it’s similar to some of the early coverage of the internet, or of many other new technologies (the printing press, for example). I recall a spate of stories blaming Craigslist for thefts and murders and a host of other things, because the thief or killer had used Craigslist to find the house they robbed or the person they murdered. This got lots of clicks for the outlets in question, but it never made sense to me — what if the thief or murderer made contact with someone using the phone, or a newspaper classified ad? Would we blame AT&T, or the publisher, or the guy who sold the classified?

Maybe we would do the latter if the ad said “Male, 34, looking for house to rob,” or “Wanted: someone to murder,” but apart from that it seems odd to blame the intermediary, unless they could have anticipated the eventual outcome. If someone puts glue on their pizza because ChatGPT tells them to, whose fault is that? It’s clear that the AI screwed up in providing this advice — although in many cases the advice comes from human beings making jokes or engaging in pranks, rather than an AI confabulation (as AI pioneer Geoff Hinton likes to call them). But a human being still had to decide to do something stupid as a result. If you try to use a child’s inflatable bath toy as a life preserver and die, is the manufacturer at fault for not including a warning label advising you not to?

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “We shouldn’t blame AI for the stupid things that people do”

Ever since ChatGPT first emerged on the scene in 2022, there has been a vociferous debate about whether the indexing (or “scraping”) of public content that AI companies do when they are training a large-language model should be considered an infringement of the copyright held by publishers and/or the authors of those books, or whether it should be covered by the “fair use” exemption in US copyright law. As some of you may know, I have consistently been on the latter side of the debate — in a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review and then an edition of The Torment Nexus, I argued that the scraping or indexing of public content by LLMs should be legally no different than the indexing of books that Google did in the early 2000s as part of its Google Books project. After a court case that lasted for a number of years, judge Denny Chin ruled in 2013 that Google’s indexing of content was covered by the fair-use exemption because he believed it to be a “transformative” use, which is one of the four factors that judges have to take into account when they are making a decision. As I wrote last year:

Judges have to balance the competing elements of the “four factor” test, namely: 1) What is the purpose of the use? In other words, is it intended as parody or satire, is it for scholarly research or journalism, etc. 2) What is the nature of the original work? Is it artistic in nature? Is it fiction or nonfiction? 3) How much of the original does the infringing use involve — is it an excerpt or the entire work? and 4) What impact does the infringing use have on the market for the original? In the Google Books case, the scanning of millions of books was not done for research or journalism, in many cases the books in question were creative works of fiction, the entire book was copied, and the Authors Guild argued that it would have a negative impact on the market. One element in Google’s favour, however, was that while its indexing process made copies of the whole book, its search engine never showed users the entire thing.”

As you can see from the four factors, a fair-use decision is effectively a balancing act between different and competing interests: the interests of the author and/or publisher, in protecting and making money from their works, and the interest of the public in having “transformative” uses of art available to them. This kind of balancing is necessary because copyright itself was designed as a balancing act, between the commercial interests of creators and the public benefit of freely available artistic work — to “promote the progress of science and useful arts,” as the US Constitution describes it. Some authors and publishers (but not all) believe that copyright’s sole purpose is to enrich creators, but that’s not accurate; revenue for creators is important, but so is society’s interest in having publicly available and usable art. Judge Chin decided that the scanning of books in order to make them searchable and provide excerpts was transformative enough that it outweighed the infringement of copyright and potential market impact.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Judge says AI engines can index books but can’t pirate them”

From Texas Monthly: “The day before he would take off his clothes and vanish into the rural countryside on a frigid night — defying logic, devastating those who loved him, and baffling some of the best criminal investigators in Texas — Jason Landry was thinking about socks. Not just any socks, but a colorful pair that featured an image of a monkey in a suit and tie holding a briefcase in one hand and a banana in the other, with the words “monkey business” stitched across each ankle. Socks were the highlight of an extensive, bullet-pointed Christmas list that Jason texted to his mother, Lisa, on Saturday, December 12, 2020. Jason, a lovable 21-year-old goofball who always seemed to be smiling, was normally the opposite of a list maker. Unlike his older siblings, both of whom were regimented and rule oriented, Jason eschewed rules and hated planning. In the days before he disappeared, Jason appears to have done lots of self-medicating. In Instagram messages that were later released by law enforcement, Jason told a close friend that with the help of drugs, he’d found God and seen him for the “first time ever.”

A brain implant allowed a man with ALS to speak and even sing musical notes in his real voice

From Scientific American: “A man with a severe speech disability is able to speak expressively and sing using a brain implant that translates his neural activity into words almost instantly. The device conveys changes of tone when he asks questions, emphasizes the words of his choice and allows him to hum a string of notes in three pitches.The system — known as a brain–computer interface (BCI) — used artificial intelligence (AI) to decode the participant’s electrical brain activity as he attempted to speak. The device is the first to reproduce not only a person’s intended words but also features of natural speech such as tone, pitch and emphasis, which help to express meaning and emotion.In a study, a synthetic voice that mimicked the participant’s own spoke his words within 10 milliseconds of the neural activity that signalled his intention to speak. The system, described today in Nature, marks a significant improvement over earlier BCI models, which streamed speech within three seconds.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “When one of the coldest cases in Texas got even weirder”

From the China Project: “It’s perhaps the most infamous case in the annals of modern Chinese crime. The tale begins in March 1995, as a nervous Zhu walked on stage to begin a Chinese zither recital. Her performance was flawless, if a touch rote. No one in the room, least of all Zhu, had any idea of the reason: that there was a rare poison working through her system, a toxic heavy metal called thallium (ta) that would soon render the young scholar incapable of again recognizing a zither melody again, let alone play one. The first strange signs had begun in November the previous year: Zhu’s palms would tingle and grow numb, symptoms quickly followed by agonizing pains, nausea, and diarrhea. At the time, the student had dismissed them as a winter flu or some form of food poisoning. When the conditions returned only hours after her final recital in March, however, they proved far more extreme and varied: Acute stomach ache, drastic hair loss, leg pains, loss of muscular eye control, partial facial paralysis. Today, Zhu Ling lives, but has the mental age of a six-year-0ld.”

The shark from the movie Jaws is in the public domain and always has been

From Ironic Sans: “Due to a fluke of publishing and copyright law, the Jaws shark is public domain. It’s not the character of the shark that’s public domain – or someone would surely be making a low-budget horror prequel about how he became the Amity Island Killer. But I’m talking about the famous shark painting from the movie poster. When the book first came out, it didn’t have this cover art. An old New York Times article about the book’s origin explains that the author, Peter Benchley, actually had his own idea for the cover. He thought it should show “a peaceful unsuspecting town through the bleached jaws of a shark.” The publisher didn’t like it. They hired artist Roger Kastel to make an updated version of the cover, and he went to the Museum of Natural History to study sharks, and he had a model pose across a couple of stools for reference of what someone looks like swimming. But it was never copyrighted.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “The poisoning of a Chinese student is still a mystery”