The High King

Really enjoying my Year of Calvino (calvino.benscofield.com) so far - just finished _The Cloven Viscount_. It feels like it wants to be deeper than it is, with the possible exception of Pietrochiodo's brief self-reflection on how much easier he found it to create devices for evil than it was to...

@kellyjeanne.bsky.social this seems like it's up your alley

The “prosecute the former regime at every level” candidate has my vote in 2028.

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts. Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

Today’s the day! We’re so proud and excited to announce the Miren Developer Preview. We’ve been hard at work on a better deployment platform for over a year. We can’t wait for you to try it! Head over to miren.dev/developer-pr... to download it and chat with us in Discord.

Finally getting around to reading The Mind in the Wheel from @slimemoldtimemold.bsky.social, and boy howdy does the prologue do double duty as an exploration of both superficial science and overblown claims about LLMs. Statistics ≠ understanding, even when useful for, e.g., prediction.

@tenderlove.dev We were talking about views (landscape, not page) earlier, right? This is the Christopher Alexander pattern I mentioned: patternlanguage.cc/Patterns/Zen...

Reminiscing about the Rails Rumble and wondering if it’d be fun to run a Context Quarrel: teams submit prompts plus context, judging consists of handing it off to a model to vibe code

I'm in Philadelphia for the last RailsConf. The Ruby community has been pivotal in my life -- friends, work, inspiration -- for almost as long as RailsConf has existed. I'm grateful that I was able to contribute in whatever small ways I could. This is the end of an era, and I already miss it.

Oh man, I think I need to reboot Moodprint ASAP

This is a very good practice: www.schneems.com/2025/06/03/d...

The real bottleneck for useful AI isn’t just model quality. It’s the walls around our data. A thread on walled gardens, economic incentives, and why even the best models can’t help us if they can’t see us. 🧵

I just had a conversation with an old Ruby friends and got re-excited to be going to the last ever @rubycentral.org RailsConf in July. If you didn't know it's the last one and you used to go, maybe the fact that some of us old folks will be there is enough to tip you into coming?

@scalzi.com Random question, but who designed the covers for the latest OMW mass market paperbacks? I'm in the bookstore paging through and can't find a credit...

We’re following up season three of Ten Thousand with Dr. Brooke Macnamara (@brookemacnamara.bsky.social). She’s worked extensively in expertise, skill acquisition, and more. Have a listen, and look for Ten Thousand to be back in 2025! tenthousand.fm/episode/expe...

This week, we’re wrapping the fiction season by talking to Gwenda Bond (@gwenda.bsky.social), who’s written across genres and formats, and who is focused on finding that one reader who connects with the story she’s telling. Take a listen! tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

In 1976 Siskel looked like a cop on the edge and Ebert looked like his boss who was telling him he was over the line and a loose canon.

This week on Ten Thousand, Ken Liu (@kyliu99.bsky.social) joins to talk about language as a tool, and how being good at writing fiction involves inventing new ways to communicate your unique perspective on the world tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

We're moving to the indie side in Ten Thousand this week, with Chris Huisjen (who writes as Aest Belequa online). We talk about serialized fiction, the writer's toolkit, and how lowering the stakes makes for better learning opportunities. Give it a listen! tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

Fiction continues, this week with Andrea Phillips (@andrea.bsky.social)! We talk about writing for different media (short stories, novels, interactive fiction, scripts) and different ways that collaboration can work. tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

Ten Thousand series 3 starts today! This time, we’re looking at expertise in writing (fiction), and the first episode is an interview with Dr. Eric Schwitzgebel - philosophy professor and short storyist. Take a listen! tenthousand.fm/episode/fict...

Two seasons of Ten Thousand are in the book, and we're celebrating with an interview with Barbara Gail Montero -- former professional ballet dancer, current philosopher, and author of articles and books on expertise! tenthousand.fm/episode/expe...

We’re wrapping up the philosophy season! This week, I talk with Johnathan Flowers (@shengokai.bsky.social) covering good public philosophy, how philosophers practice, and how important (and rewarding!) it is to get past the grind of the typical intro class. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

This week's interview is with Louise Antony, professor emerita at UMass Amherst, and a foundational figure in philosophy of mind, feminist philosophy, and other fields. Find out what "the practice is the doing" means in philosophy! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

Continuing the philosophy season, our next episode features Nicholas Drake - grad student at the ANU, working on measures of national well-being. Is being good at philosophy the same as being good at finding truth? podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ten...

Season 2 of Ten Thousand starts today! We're excited to kick off our interviews with philosophers by talking to Mary Kate McGowan. Check it out at podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ten...

Dave Thomas (@pragdave) is a foundational figure in software. I got to speak to him as the last interview of Ten Thousand's first season. Take a listen! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

The latest episode of Ten Thousand is out! This time, I got to speak to @nodunayo.bsky.social, who (as always) is amazing! Check it out! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Episode 2 of Ten Thousand is now out, with Aaron Patterson (@tenderlove, for those in the know). Take a listen! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

For literally years, I've wanted a podcast to exist that looked at expertise as a journey -- not just interviews with Olympians, or discussions of what novices miss, but conversations with people all along the path. After much dithering, I finally started it: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

*Very* quick thoughts on unifying a couple of distinct phenomena around understanding: benscofield.com/2024/02/conc...

Ugh, years (>10) ago, I read a book by a political scientist that went through the US Constitution Article-by-Article and suggested ways to update it with the benefit of hindsight; one proposal was that Presidents be elected to 6-year terms, then run (unopposed) for a ...

Just took 30 minutes and whipped up an Obsidian plugin to import metadata for a DOI and drop it into a reference note 🙌 There's nothing like being able to tweak your tools to work *just* like you want them to.