I got a “please consider the environment before printing this email” this morning. Dude, genuine question, are you still struggling to adjust to the Age of Computer or do you think I am?

My campaign to “limit 501(c)(3) status to orgs excluded from s.509(a)” isn’t getting the take up you’d expect from the name, but it would solve *so many* problems. (Abolish the tax exemption for rich people’s private foundations)

This morning I learnt that Kâsekuche = quiche. Better than finding out at dinner.

Zürich #nokings

The AP's story on the IOC's new policy mentions that it "also restricts" athletes like two-time Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya. That word "also" is doing a lot of work. New piece on who this policy is actually about: www.readtpa.com/p/the-iocs-n...

“Lacking much of a hinterland of ideas as it came into office” I would simply have some idea what I wanted to do with power, before I dedicated my life to gaining it.

4:11 pm.

I never understood the “crease-free” claims. As long as the display’s not literally 2-dimensional, the extra stuff on the inside of the curve has to go somewhere. (Also I don’t understand the appeal of bendy phones, but that’s apparently just me.) www.macrumors.com/2026/03/23/f...

One to save to respond to the inevitable tsking when the time comes

And then those new civilian areas will need buffer zones further north.

New politician’s syllogism: (1) We need policies; (2) these are policies; …

Leigh-on-Sea

Yvoire timeline cleanse

Yipes. Good to see scepticism in the headline. (Apple News link) stocks.apple.com/AccjApwb7Qsq...

They said it would take 193 years to clean London’s air. We did it in nine. 💨 London has now met legal limits for nitrogen dioxide air pollution.

Swiss moment: French host giving the WiFi password says “soixante quatorze”, Adrian like a good Genevois types “6014”

They’re telling me a great empire will be destroyed if I attack Persia. Even the oracles who don’t like me very much, very nasty, they all said to me, “Sir, it’s one of the great empires, and it’ll be destroyed. And all because you attacked Persia.” That’s what they’re telling me.

I will take a deal where right-wing governments (a) do nothing at all and (b) remain popular.

The FT’s customer retention algorithm is hungry today. The annual “pretend to cancel” exercise got me from a 34% hike (!) to a 25% drop (!!).

“AI is the future of tax. Tax is probably the best part of professional services for AI: it’s rules-based, repeatable, data-driven. What’s better?” And, of course, the clients are legally responsible for any errors. www.ft.com/content/512b...

Oh no, the 32s

I like to replace "AI" etc with "a statistical average of all relevant texts", which helps me keep in mind that AIs don't *opt* for anything, they just generate words; but in this case rather scares me about humans. www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

Mishcon de Reya reminding us that ~(p & q) -/> ~p & ~q: “[Mandelson’s] arrest was prompted by a baseless suggestion that he was planning to leave the country and take up permanent residence abroad,… There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in any such suggestion.”

The Macalope dares to say it: “Apple has, to date, struggled to deliver on its AI promises. And maybe that’s a good thing? Because other companies seem content to ship AI products that just don’t work right, often with some catastrophic, if hilarious, results” www.macworld.com/article/3069...

This is the perfect example: see massive progress, and assume it will just continue at the same rate. To this mindset, sceptics pointing to the categorical difference between plausible imitation and reliable fact-tracking are either Luddites or just not paying attention.

Hark, I hear the tinkle of falling pennies (Apple News link) stocks.apple.com/AeC0ueEjFRvG...

The thing is, thinking and working through ideas is one thing, writing essays is another. Students will talk about philosophy into the wee hours because that’s more fun (and less pressure) than writing it down. I suspect that being baffled by this distinction is a sign of a productive philosopher.

Today in Schweizerische Volkspartei.

It’s good for various reasons that they’ve acknowledged the bottom line here. But “fundamental statistical limits” are not the problem. LLMs are just not in the truth business.

This, and that this won’t be changed by more training data or more processing power. It’s a matter of architecture, not scale.

I’m trying to understand the AI optimist position. The best I can come up with is that the startling progress of generative AI in the early 2020s led people to think that remaining performance limits (hallucination) would be crashed through just as quickly.

My guess is what we’re seeing here is Apple torn. They want to release an AI assistant, but (unlike everyone else in the space) they can’t bring themselves to release it until it’s reliable. Which it can’t be, because LLM. No obvious way out… www.macrumors.com/2026/02/11/s...

Yeah if a news story gives the *individual names* of the rich people leaving a country of 70 million, it is not describing an exodus. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

The sadly neglected paradox of the Truthteller xkcd.com/3201/

Hi perhaps you would like a little break from the news in the form of an essay about my trip to Centralia, Pennsylvania, the town that’s been on fire since 1962—a place where surprisingly I found a great deal of hope, wonder, and mystery.

Said Trump on 5/1/2021

New Year’s Day in Switzerland (above Churwalden)

how wild is it tho that the fuckin king of england is the one clapping back at white supremacy and labour is the one pushing it

See also the Swiss “Union démocratique du centre », which is more honestly named across the Röstigraben as the Schweizerische Volkspartei.

My peeve is that this is the gateway version of “I know about the germ theory of disease but also I know better.” Good luck RTS. Wearing warm clothes is better than declining vaccines, obvs. But the anti-vax Facebook memes have to work on something. www.rts.ch/info/sante/2...

Proper Bangalore wines at Grover Zampa.

I’m normally that “Apple know what they’re doing, get used to it” guy, but now I know the Truth About Alan Dye, I am reverting liberally.

So, El Fasher looks like one of the worst single event atrocities to happen this century so far, but the evidence has come in such a trickle it seems to only now be getting verified

This also surely makes it impossible to maintain the “not a visa, and so compatible with our visa-waiver agreements” line that underlies ESTAs (along with ETAs and ETIASes). The EU might actually care about that. Though the US might not care that the EU cares.

First trip on the Queen for a while

Using my new Clair Obscur-trained reflexes to select the search item I want in the half-second before the system replaces it with something else.

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.

Tragic moments in the life of a father. “Hey Dad, I’ve just seen that that Hitchhiker’s Guide thing you keep talking about, there’s a movie version! Can I download it?”

“High earners and [successful] entrepreneurs” is a set of people defined by how much they take, Kier mate.

Things Rowling is pretending to believe here: 1) that trans women, who she wants to be kept out of women’s spaces to stop them taking over, erasing and assaulting women, won’t do any of those things if there’s a sign.