Himself

Name? Age? Who knows?

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The Buckinghamshire Archives said…

We’ve had a few enquiries come in after chatbots told researchers that we hold documents we don’t actually look after

…in response to a warning from the ICRC about AI nonsense-bots generating fabricated references because they are designed to spew out something that looks like an answer even if there is no answer available.

Having fallen down a family history rabbit hole recently it seems that such erroneous content is not limited to AI bots.

    Birth dates before 1st July 1837, when a national register started, are endlessly variable and a person may have five or more different years recorded as their birth year during their lifetime.
    As old records are handwritten details such as surnames may not be deciphered correctly.
    Just because somebody ticked the box confirming that all the information provided on a census form is true and accurate does not mean that all the information provided on the form is true and/or accurate.
    The transcribers of census forms can miss people from a listing because they were ‘hidden’ on the next page.
    Even if somebody is included in another family tree it does not mean that person actually existed.

Developers are great – an ongoing series

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Most of my school reports concluded that I ‘could do better’/’must try harder’. As we watch the web disintegrate around us daily those are the words that usually come to mind. It is not just the Enshittification but the careless amateurism of much of what appears on, supposedly, professionally developed sites. I assume that these are managed and overseen by someone competent but…

Duncan, lower your monthly payments by £0 Est.

This is basic stuff. In lesson one you learn about Bubble sorts. Lesson two check for negative and zero values so you do not spew out nonsense like this.