Via Clive Thompson’s latest Linkfest, we are directed towards a narrowly trained language model from 
Hugging Face contributor Pierre-Carl Langlais versed in texts from the Early to Late Medieval Period, which is essentially akin to having a scholarly monk as one’s interlocutor, delightfully limited to the corpora of scientific, historical and cultural of the tenth through seventeenth centuries. Not to contribute to the misconception that the Dark Ages were backwards and lacking in introspection, the conversations elicited (see also) seem pretty fun and harmless vis-ร -vis the rather worrisome tendency of of generalised chatbots to confidently lead one astray and is suitable for staying in character at the Renaissance Fair and for continuing to tease out facts from a specific manuscript. Questions and answers can also be generated in French and Latin.
one year ago: assorted links to revisit, remembering the 13. November Terrorist Attacks in France plus more bad paperback covers
two years ago: more links to enjoy plus Hollywood Horror House (1970)
three years ago: your daily demon: Vual, venues entrusted with medical information, animal magnetism, composer Johann Zach plus the vice-president elect
four years ago: the Feast of St Brice, a customisable racing bar chart plus conditioning feline instincts
five years ago: linear settlements, customisable emoji plus AI’s tendency to cheat and cut-corners
