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Re: I can't find my #@%*& type specimens!
by livingplanet3 » Thu Apr 25, 2024 11:57 pm
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Re: I can't find my #@%*& type specimens!
by adamcotton » Thu Apr 25, 2024 9:57 pm
Hopefully you will find it soon.
Adam.
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Re: I can't find my #@%*& type specimens!
by eurytides » Thu Apr 25, 2024 9:20 pm
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I can't find my #@%*& type specimens!
by Chuck » Thu Apr 25, 2024 8:59 pm
I cannot find them.
This shouldn't be hard- all specimens, drawer after drawer after drawer, are collated chronologically.
And the last drawer ends just before the capture dates of the type pair. So I'm actually missing an entire #*^%@# drawer.
I can't imagine anyone came and stole it, and I never took it out of the house.
Arrrrgggghhhh!
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by Chuck » Thu Apr 25, 2024 5:31 pm
The motive isn't to get an answer. There are a myriad of reasons bots and scams post inaccurate stuff:
1. to identify the gullible, and identify those to avoid. This may be at the individual level, or forum level
2. to gain posts in order to appear trustworthy when it comes time to defraud
3. to see how easy it is the register & post/ get past any gate keepers (for future use)
4. to establish sleeper accounts that will be used sometimes years later
5. to find sites/ accounts that have PM-to-email and/ or file storage to use for illicit and harder-to-track crime.
Basically for crime of some sort.
When I see a bot/ potential fraud, the first thing I do is search for some copy/paste phrase. Sometimes you'll find the same thing all over the internet (hint: that's a dead give-away). This one though was tailored for this forum; note that "clothes moths", Permathrin, "west coast", and "NYC" have all come up sometimes regularly here. Scientific names appear daily on here. Throw in some scientific names available in seconds, and it's obvious it was tailored for us.
Why were we targeted? Probably fraud. If someone had taken it seriously and posted a serious response that's a flag of gullibility. Then see how long you can go back-and-forth with the gullible to see how gullible they are. Then watch them for a year. Then six months later hit them with a PM offering something for money, or even get them to click a link that infects their computer. Bingo.
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by kevinkk » Thu Apr 25, 2024 3:47 pm
Even without being an expert on clothes moths, I found the premise to be virtually impossible, this is what often happens when people,
or robots, step out of their field of expertise and rub elbows with the experienced.
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by Chuck » Thu Apr 25, 2024 2:45 pm
There are many with that consensus, and I believe it dangerous.
Human technology went from biplanes to jets in six years. AI will mature far faster.
It's already used quite often for unethical, biased purposes. It's suggested people commit suicide, it's ridiculed (bullied) people, etc. It has suggested the elimination of the human species. It does not, unfortunately, have the "robot will not harm humans" programming. It's now being not just politically weaponized, but militarily weaponized. "The Terminator" truly is the destination, and not far off.
Aside from that dire prediction, as we see here it wastes time. It hides elements of research while promoting others. It knowingly provides incorrect information. This is not good if AI is used for research. Bots then splatter it all over forums and such. When AI can publish on its own, who knows which publications will be reliable, and which aren't.
Though throttling AI development has been discussed, it's out of the bag and control will, inevitably, be minimal. Just like Skype killed the long distance phone company, and online publishing killed the newspaper.
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by Paul K » Thu Apr 25, 2024 1:07 pm
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by Jshuey » Thu Apr 25, 2024 12:53 pm
j
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by Chuck » Thu Apr 25, 2024 12:24 pm
AI is available in various packages (programs) and each have owner-adjustable settings for correctness, tone, writing level, and humor. In general though, all of the commercially available (eg ChatGPT) mine the internet for info, but don't go deeper into publications, etc. So if the answer/ info isn't commonly available (e.g. on Wikipedia) or "conventional wisdom" the answer will be wrong.adamcotton wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2024 9:34 pm I found this post strange, but I'm not sure it's AI ... wouldn't AI know that species names are spelt with a first small letter, and only genus names with a capital?
Adam.
Further, there's adjustable settings for things like "make stuff up"; a NASA AI engineer told me that's intentional because the AI chat is trying to get human users to correct it, and then it stores that information.
What AI is fascinatingly adept at is generating well written content that emulates English; at the asking this can be adjusted for competence (e.g., school grade level, and US vs UK vocabulary usage.)
Typically, the give-away on AI-generated content is a mix of in-depth knowledge with perplexing stupidity. That's what we have here- names of species, chemicals, etc. but a total lack of common sense. AI itself, asked to write a simple story, won't come up with this content- somebody asked it to write an absolutely outrageous story, which is what was posted. Problem is, AI doesn't know enough to not employ species names and chemical details. So the hand is tipped.
There are other give-aways: west coast and NYC, which are well known and the home of most AI programmers/ owners. If it had picked, for example, the source location to be Coeur D'Alene Idaho the story would fall apart because virtually everyone from that area (1) has the common sense to know this is impossible, and (2) doesn't have the money to throw clothing away every three days. Though the fact that it did not pick Coeur D'Alene isn't to make the story more believable; again, it picked or was told "west coast."
The spelling, grammar, and punctuation I've not experimented with. Usually, AI will generate these to perfection, so I'm unsure if a user can tell Chat to intentionally screw up, or if these were later hand-edited. "0.5% Permethrin" and later "permathrins" is not, AFAIK, AI (yet.) This then indicates to me that the content was generated (by AI upon request) not by a bot to mine data, but by a human with some other motive.
Another clue to AI generation is the tone. It tries to make it believable, which is actually VERY difficult. Remember the US newspapers' "Dear Abby" column, in which dingbat writers would ask for advice about challenges that pretty much everyone knew how to handle? One particular college (forgot which one) was adept at getting spoof questions published- but IIRC under 20 of these made it through in a period spanning decades. AI on the other hand is effectively a master of manipulation; in many ways it can out-think the humans appointed to screen it. This is scary, because AI is just a baby.
In some cases, and we will see here, AI will return to "defend" itself with well written excuses and more story. This though, right now, is rare. Besides which, as I said while this is AI generated, there's a human involved. This in itself is somewhat of a blessing, as is the fact that the whole thing is a spoof, because if this were truly human-generated based on a perceived series of events we have to keep in mind that this person drives and votes.
You can expect AI to be mature enough within five years that it will generate content on detailed subjects for which humans will not be able to ascertain who/ what wrote it. Like any tool, it will be used for entertainment, politics, and crime, what a shame.
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by kevinkk » Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:09 pm
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by adamcotton » Wed Apr 24, 2024 9:34 pm
Adam.
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Re: Identifying Diptera from Spain
by livingplanet3 » Wed Apr 24, 2024 8:54 pm
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Identifying Diptera from Spain
by Elodin » Wed Apr 24, 2024 7:58 pm
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by Chuck » Wed Apr 24, 2024 3:16 pm
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by kevinkk » Wed Apr 24, 2024 2:46 pm
quite extensive, and I am having trouble envisioning the moth conspiracy which is plaguing you.
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Re: Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by Chuck » Wed Apr 24, 2024 11:35 am
Is this AI?
Are you from California or Oregon?
Do you smoke or weld?
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Re: Checkerspot I.D.?
by boghaunter1 » Wed Apr 24, 2024 5:07 am
Thanks for the quick reply... I think you are correct... looks like a good match. I sent the same photos to another fellow who is writing a new book on SK butterflies; the last SK butterfly book was published in 1976 & is really outdated, & he came to the same conclusion. Checkerspots are extremely variable, even within a local population, & this one just has really enhanced white ventral markings. I think there are something like 24 named ssp. of E. anicia alone! I have a good series of these & this one female just stood out from all of the more "normal" looking females (like the one you showed). Thanks again!
John K.
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Re: Collecting in Vietnam
by nikiahloch » Wed Apr 24, 2024 3:55 am
The airport in the US. I'm flying back from Vietnam to California. I live in the United States. "They" is the custom officials at the airport. I have an email from the agent that told me this info. So I have plenty of evidence of what they said. I did read the laws. I just decided to actually talk to someone about it.Chuck wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 10:59 pmWhich airport? Who is "they"?nikiahloch wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2024 6:18 pm
When your at the airport. If you have to go to customs. The person I talked to with USFW said that in most cases. They will just ask if they are dead or alive. This is a topic they deal with all the time, that's what they said to me.
Anything USFWS tells you is worthless. Get it in writing, and identified as to who wrote it. USFWS personnel once told me an import was OK, but apparently it wasn't, and the only thing that saved me was that I had kept copious notes- names, dates, times and exact words.
GO READ THE LAWS. This is so stupid we always go round-and-round here with "somebody said."
The other question is Vietnam wildlife export laws.
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Clothes moths infestation — Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella
by MonaLisa » Wed Apr 24, 2024 2:11 am
An entomologist saw my moth trap in September 2023 and confirmed I have both Tineola Bisselliella and Monopis Crocicapitella.
To give you the quickest overview possible I’ve truly tried everything to get rid of them.
Here’s some high-level background:
Here’s a deeper dive on almost everything I’ve tried to get rid of the moths over the past year and a half:
What I’d like to try now:
If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears. And I’d also really appreciate any resources or research you could send my way that might help point me in the right direction.
Many thanks!