Recently updated blogs

As many already know the book CRYPTOPUNKS: FREE TO CLAIM that I worked on most of last year, which is being published by Phaidon, is currently at the printers. As far as I know it should be in people’s hands in early December. I may or may not have seen a copy already, and in either case I can attest that it turned out beautifully. This thing is a brick, …

In the last 9 months I have managed to read… not even 3 whole books. I would like to beat my average (4) this year, so lately I’ve been making it a point to get a couple of chapters in every night before bed. I hate how I can just forget how much I enjoy reading.

German-speaking readers might be interested in Roberto Vinco’s article “Neo-Scholastic Metaphysics in the 21st Century: An Examination of the Perspective of Edward Feser,” in the latest issue of the journal Philosophische Rundschau.

"This Won't Kill You" is a 60-page Nero Wolfe mystery novelette by Rex Stout. It was first published in the September 1952 issue of The American Magazine. It later appeared in book form in the short-story collection Three Men Out, published by Viking Press in 1954. I have read this story many times and it is one of my favorite novelettes in the Nero Wolfe series. It is very different …

Sinéad Campbell-Wallace, ENO’s Suor Angelica 2024 © Genevieve Girling (2).jpg The English National Opera’s latest production of Suor Angelica, staged at the London Coliseum, is an evocative and emotionally charged portrayal of Puccini’s short but powerful opera. Directed by the ever-innovative Annilese Miskimmon, this staging of the 1918 work delves deeply into themes of religious barbarism, repentance, maternal love, and redemption, with a striking simplicity that enhances the intensity of …

The other day I saw a meme that went something like this: Isn’t it crappy how basic human activities like singing, dancing, and making art have been turned into skills instead of being recognized as behaviors? The point of doing these things has become to get good at them. But they should be recognized as things humans do innately, like how birds sing or bees make hives. I thought about …

Little N scale Beaverbrook doesn’t get out much So I go to it And on the first sunny morning of October we came together as if we were going somewhere.

Reading It is very easy to get ChatGPT to emit a series of words such as “I am happy to see you.” There are many things we don’t understand about how large language models work, but one thing we can be sure of is that ChatGPT is not happy to see you. Ted Chiang’s article about AI in the New Yorker started slow for me, and having read a lot …

Maybe electric outboards aren’t just for occasional use or short trips

Cold-weather ski apparel, a remote-controlled smart wagon, and sleekly technical shoulder bags were just some of the top drops that stood out in September. Delve in and discover all of these and more as we check out the month’s best new gear below… EDC Malboro & Kane MiniPen The most handy pen is the one you have on you and with Malboro & Kane’s MiniPen, there’s no reason not to …

Back by popular demand, here are some AI-generated drawing prompts to use in this, the spooky month of October!Longtime AI Weirdness readers may recognize some of these. That's because this is a throwback list, all the way back to the times of very tiny language models. These models had not feasted on huge chunks of the internet, but had sipped delicately on hand-curated artisanal datasets. They trained rather slowly on …

Look at how this protective mamma bear holds her cub in her arms to give him a bit of a wash. Her gentle maternal care is truly touching. This mamma has spent late Autumn to Spring in a cave, having birthed them while still hibernation and staying in the den to feed them on her milk.Black bear cubs stay with their mamma for the first one to three years of …

I have not decided yet what this structure is - maybe will later. It was scratch built based on a sketch I drew. It is two stories with an outside stair case. I put a plastic kit carriage on the right side under the upper porch. Above is a front view of the structure. On the upper porch is a figure and a chair. Below the porch is the carriage …

Dan Hancox has written a great piece on 'Debunking the weird myths about London's 24-hour party people' in which he rightly takes to task some dubious claims made in the Times and elsewhere that London nightlife is in terminal decline. He rightly critiques some very dubious data, such as relying on Google Maps to show venues with late night licenses. Specifically he skewers a map included in the Times article …

I've noticed a fair bit of chatter about syndicating to other platforms material that you've published on your own website from the likes of Molly White, Dave Winer, Manuel Moreale, and even n3verm0re. Molly White is singing the praises of what the IndieWeb people call POSSE. Dave Winer gave up on POSSE in 2017 because catering to platforms that didn't support links was making him a worse writer. n3verm0re finds …