Recently updated blogs

The diary has had a leaf fall theme lately. The high winds of Storm Bert have more or less bought that chapter to a close. Only the Oaks are stubbornly clinging on their leaves; they are usually among the last to drop. And another chapter is underway. Leaf litter has a dynamic ecology/biology of its own as fungi, bacteria and invertebrates go to work decomposing all that organic matter thereby …

*We’re fond of manifestos here on the Artmaker blog. https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace Dario Amodei Machines of Loving Grace 1 How AI Could Transform the World for the Better October 2024 I think and talk a lot about the risks of powerful AI. The company I’m the CEO of Anthropic, does a lot of research on how to reduce theserisks. Because of this, people sometimes draw the conclusion that I’m a pessimist or …

Last week, Jaguar announced a major rebranding. I think it’s stupid, and not just because I don’t like it. (I don’t, but I’m neither a branding expert nor the target audience.) Instead, it’s stupid because of how it discards the brand’s past. It’s a common error: faced with a suboptimal system (e.g., declining car sales,) its stewards call for scrapping it altogether and starting anew. You see the tendency everywhere: …

If you look at Jason Dyer’s blog, he’s been at 1982 for three years with no signs of finishing it yet, and he seems to show no signs of reaching 1983. — MorpheusKitami in a comment on The Adventure Gamer blog Believe it or not, we are getting close to the end of 1982. This is my final list. If any games show up after this point they can go …

Really digging Tom Bihn’s holiday product release aesthetic — dripping in that 1970s/1980s magazine ad style. Hoping they have some kind of digital circular they release onsite to showcase this work (and products, of course). Speaking of which, if you don’t already know — they make excellent bags.

Shawn Reynaldo's latest newsletter starts by asking what are the defining sounds of the first half of 2020s and then talks about how the current scene is dominated by revivalism, before reaching its reall subject (wait for it):Yet even as dancefloors have warmed to a wider range of tempos and drum patterns, they’ve also remained stubbornly in thrall to the past. Recycling has always been big in dance music, and …

by Gideon Marcus Just four months ago, men first set foot on the Moon, fulfilling a millennia-long dream of humanity as well as culminating a decade-long Space Race between the superpowers. And the question on everyone's lips: how do you top that? It's important to remember that the flight of Apollo 11 was not the … Continue reading [November 26, 1969] From the Earth to the Moon…and back (Apollo 12) …

While I’m still perplexed by the ever-present penguin in the new series of videos from Geoffrey O’Connor, I’m totally thrilled by his pop penmanship, as he’s written another swooning pop track I adore. Casually shimmying into the verses, he works the track like a singer controlling his audience; you can almost feel him moving across the stage as he locks

There is a crisis in technical education. The golden road to a career has always been through a college education. However, this “golden road” has developed deep cracks and is badly in need of maintenance. Postsecondary education is rapidly becoming unaffordable, even at public colleges and universities. Tuition has risen at a rate 50% greater than inflation. But there’s a deeper issue. Beyond the out-of-control cost, there is evidence that …

Okay, I lied. I will tell you about some deals—all software—that are afoot that might interest photographers. Unlike the other sites, though, none of this is via affiliate links or any kickback scheme (bold indicates the company has one or more products that are in my recommended software list): Adobe Creative Cloud (full suite) — It's a first year savings only, but at US$29.98/month represents a good value if you …

A fantastic Mail Call Tuesday today! I got my copies of Thirteen Parsecs.I am very pleased with how these turned out. The leathers look great and great with NIGHT SHIFT and Wasted Lands.I even grabbed a new dice bag!Can't wait to share more of this with you all.

One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik found himself so bored that he took a coin out of his pocket and began spinning it atop the table. In a testament to the eternal paradox of boredom and wonder as two sides of the same coin — the currency of life that is attention — he was suddenly wonder-smitten by the exquisite elegance …

Rains of blood and frogs, mysterious disappearances, baffling objects in the sky: these were the anomalies that fascinated Charles Fort in his Book of the Damned. “For every five people who read this book“, wrote one reviewer, “four will go insane”. Joshua Blu Buhs recounts Fort’s early life, unfinished manuscripts (“X”, “Y”), and the philosophical monism that informed his research.

Buy the book! Sheidlower, Jesse. The F-Word, 4th edition. Oxford University Press, 2024. 449 pages. US$22.99. Back when I was a teen, c. 1980, some friends and I were cruising the streets of Seaside Heights, New Jersey on an off-season night. With us was a friend-of-a-friend, someone I did not know. He got into a verbal altercation with some other teens we had met on the street, and afterward as …

I recently had the pleasure of participating in Digital Promise‘s inaugural AI Education Exchange “Ask Me Anything” series, hosted by Kelly McNeil. This was my first LinkedIn AMA and was great fun, in large part due to the team that helped set it up and the broader community that raised a wide array of critical […]