News
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Thisday
Blurp I am told that Santa Barbara’s beaches are covered with velella now. I mean a lot like the one above, See you there A couple of nights ago, a friend and reader of mine said he didn’t understand what today’s talk by Judith Donath would be about. “Signaling theory?” he said. “What’s that?” To him, signals Continue reading
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Runday
Did he die in his sleep? "The Gambler" may be the best country song ever written. And performed. (Kenny Rogers' version is the definitive one). Alas, its author, the great Don Schlitz, has passed on. Not many details on that: Nashville hospital, sudden illness. He was from Durham, NC, one of my former homes and Continue reading
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Niceday
Which it is, here in Southern Indiana. Was yesterday too. Spring! Getting strait A visual of marine traffic piling up on the two sides of the Strait of Hormuz. Also this story on transponder spoofing in Wired. Transponders are how one can see what ships are where, their routes, and other important facts for cooperative Continue reading
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Thrustday
A hopeful sign My News Commons site and series are getting action lately. Continue reading
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TGI Day
Bad news OMFG, news is such a shitshow. Start with Do links hurt news publishers on Twitter? Our analysis suggests yes, by NiemanLab. Then, Social Media has Become a Freak Show, by Nate Silver. Thing is, more and more people in the U.S. now get their news (if that’s what it is) from social media, which Continue reading
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Fendsday
How to prevent the all-knowing and all-doing from doing wrong. Very wrong. Just one approach. Wired: Anthropic Teams Up With Its Rivals to Keep AI From Hacking Everything And, of course, Gary Marcus is less worried. When you whack a hornet's nest with a baseball bat while standing naked, what are the hornets going to do? Continue reading
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Tryday
MVP thoughts I nominate Tyrese Haliburton for MVP. He hasn't played at all this year, because he's out with a hamstring injury he suffered when the Pacers (our Indiana home team) were neck-and-neck with the OKC Thunder in the final championship game. This season, without Haliburton, the Pacers are among the league's worst. Why? No Continue reading
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Flursday
Might do the same for you In The Relentless Missionary Creating AGI: Demis Hassabis, the latest episode of the Founders podcast, David Senra compresses by Sebastian Mallaby's book, The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence, into 55 minutes of pure inspiration. Not just because Demis is a hugely inspired and driven dude, but Continue reading
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Wednesfool
1 You’re welcome I don’t hate April Fools Day. I’m just too busy to participate. So this is a fooling-free blog post. Much to munch on Getting great hang time with Jon Udell (who also manifests here) lately. Here are two of his recent publishings ya’ll might dig: • Introducing XMLUI • Beyond The Dip Is there also Continue reading
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Toesday
It's not too late Come join us for this at 4 pm Eastern today. Also on the privacy front One thinks of Thomson Reuters as a source of good information on issues (Thomson) and news (Reuters). That's the brand. Alas, it's also a source of information about you and me to ICE, Palantir, and others. Continue reading
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Midweekend
And now we are hear Our vacationing crew likes The Rippingtons, so I played some of their music through CarPlay on the rental car’s dashboard while sitting in the Lihue Costco parking lot. The above came up. How to enjoy bad but not worse weather Dig the webcam at Poipu beach, on the south side Continue reading
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Heading Out Day
Life in the vast lane The thunderstorms have passed by, and we’re finishing packing for Santa Barbara and Hawaii. In a related matter, people often ask me why I endure the hassles of travel. The answers: 1) Because it’s not a hassle for me; 2) I love flying and driving; and 3) I like being Continue reading
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Better News
I learned that a small plane landed on the Hudson near Newburgh, NY* from a notification on my laptop that said the story was from WNYC. So I went there. Found nothing. Then I went to Google News and searched for plane+hudson. Wanting to give some linklove to one of the local news (formerly newspaper) Continue reading
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Sun Daisies
Some reading for today::: War is a dirty business, by Scott Bateman MBE, on X. HT to Tanya Weiman for her comment here. Catch the lunar eclipse on Tuesday. In case I don’t remind you. Or me. A thank you to Brian Linse for his kind words on Bluesky. Fact: one of the best parties I’ve ever Continue reading
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War on Peace
You may have noticed there is a war going on. I’m not here to cover it. I’m here to cover, or at least visit, stories about it. See, stories themselves are a problem, both in human nature (we love and live stories) and in journalism, which feeds and is fed on the human appetite for stories, Continue reading
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Tornado Spotting
I left dinner at the Uptown to stand at the corner of Kirkwood and College in downtown Bloomington, Indiana, to shoot the tornado my phone just told me had formed eight miles west of there. That’s where I was facing when I shot this video, from which I pulled a bunch of screen grabs in Continue reading
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Weekstart
Or both Monday and Tuesday? If Saturday and Sunday are the weekend, why not call Monday the Weekstart? Smart? Or just good at whatever this is? An AI counterargument to the mirror thesis. And not just because my name gets dropped in it. This Ezra Klein podcast with Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu is required listening. Continue reading
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Webnesday
The Oligarch Giveth, and The Oligarch Taketh Away The Guardian: ‘It’s an absolute bloodbath’: Washington Post lays off hundreds of workers—Former Post executive editor blasts owner Jeff Bezos’s ‘sickening efforts to curry favor’ with Trump This Pew study says 25% of US adults get news regularly from the Washington Post. (Disclosure: I subscribe, and I’m Continue reading
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Toes Day
Conched Out Conch is big food here on Harbour Island. Because there are a lot of them, I suppose. Ate some battered and fried conch yesterday at the Queen Conch (also the name of this species, aka Aliger gigas), on a dock above the water. Beside the dock on one side is a fenced conch Continue reading
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Who New?
Might be Winter Every day it snows a little here. Required reading. Seriously. Adrian Gropper: Taking Control of Your Healthcare is More Important Than Ever—Get help from a private AI that works for you – and only you. Announcing the North Atlantic Takeover Organization I avoid politics here, but it’s hard not to hear echoes Continue reading