Recently updated blogs

Arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine [note: I’m still looking, but this was not their tureen.]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AI’s Penicillin and X-Ray Moment Matteo Wong | The Atlantic “When the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel wrote his will in 1895, he designated funds to reward those who ‘have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.’ The resulting Nobel Prizes have since been awarded to the discoverers of penicillin, X-rays, and the structure of DNA—and, as of today, to two scientists who, decades ago, laid the foundations for modern …

In a tantalizing article in The Conversation, Robert Nichol (University of Surrey) offers a look at where new physics might just be emerging in conjunction with the study of dark energy. Nichol is an astronomer and cosmologist deeply experienced in the kind of huge astronomical surveys that help us study mind-boggling questions like how much of the universe is made up of matter, dark matter or dark energy. We’ve assumed …

Here’s all the writing about beer and pubs that grabbed us in the past week, from Manchester to Acid House. First, a few bits of news: Thornbridge & Co (a partnership between Thornbridge and Pivovar) is planning to open a pub in London in 2025. It seems a long way from home but there’s no denying that our immediate reaction is pleasure at the thought of knowing there’ll be somewhere …

and you are hereby invited to spend some money on it, thank you.

After the Skaven, it's now the Stormcast Eternals' turn to receive a massive influx of new models for the 4th Edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar. In part 1 of our mega review, we take a closer look at the first half of the new releases, including high-resolution sprue images and all the possible build options. The post Review: Stormcast Eternals Lord-Celestant, Reclusians, Stormstrike Palladors, Iridan the Witness appeared first …

I have a discovery to report. Many of the world’s great treasures are known to have been lost over the centuries. I believe I may have found one of them. What follows is the evidence for my claim. I’m in a difficult position, though. If my claim is not accepted by scholars, I shall look a fool. If it is … then I shall be in a worse position. The …

Time for a poem, and as I'm not long back from Venice, here's one on a Venetian theme – one of A.E. Housman's less well known works, published after his death (in the collection More Poems), probably because it is a little too revealing of Housman's sexual predilections. In Venice he had had a romantic liaison (inevitably abortive) with a gondolier called Andrea, who is named in the poem, but …

I love finding out about what apps other folks use so I thought I’d give a rundown on what’s on my iPhone. Health and fitness Zenitizer - A meditation timer that can play some white noise and throw up chimes on a custom interval. Most of the other meditation apps are junky or have a bunch of courses in them and cost a bunch more. MacroFactor - A calorie tracker …

This blog post is the twenty fifth in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.Science fiction cinema of the 1980s holds a special place in the hearts of many fans … perhaps because so many of them fell in love with the genre during a decade in which the genre entered the mainstream.Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken in Escape …

For this episode I spoke to Simone Robutti. Simone works as an organization designer, adversarial researcher, and teacher. Formerly a software developer, he has been part of different chapters of Tech Workers Coalition since 2018. During the interview we discussed how to start a labor union at your tech company, innovative ways to go on strike, and how tech ideology as psyoped you to thinking labor struggle can’t work in …

After Liverpool, Conwy. Via Bangor, very briefly. (All I'll say is that if you tell people you're going on holiday to X and their response is 'X? Really?', that should probably be taken as an opportunity to rethink your travel plans.) Conwy is a pretty walled town in North Wales, built around a 13th-century castle built by Edward I. I've been here before and loved it, and even wrote three …

Introducing: clipscreen Using a ginormous 49" widescreen monitor is awesome. Except for when you wanna share your screen in Google Meet or other tools. Sharing a 5120×1440 screen simply makes no sense. Of course you can opt to share a tab or window instead. But for work, I often need to switch between a terminal, my IDE and a browser. If I want to share my workflow with a colleague, …

An end of week recap “Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.” – Herman Hesse I thank you for your cheerful forbearance while I gallivanted off to York to meet my half-sister and her wife for the first time ever. Our get-together went wonderfully (thank you so much to those who wished me well), and I return to you with these varied collectanea of literary …