Another thing to note: AI hiring tools give higher scores to resumes created with the same LLM. If the hiring tool is ChatGPT-based, it's biased towards ChatGPT resumes. If it's Gemini-based, it prefers Gemini resumes. This is why I have given up applying for jobs other than by word of mouth.

Planting time: chilis, peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, lettuce, onions, cauliflower, spinach, chard, courgettes, peas. Lots of herbs in there already: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (everybody sing along now!), oregano, basil and mint. More going in tomorrow after we go to the nursery.

I liked life of Pi. This one... not so much. mattkelland.substack.com/p/son-of-nob...

From the randomly read department: "If an ordinary person has to spend twenty minutes planning a detailed prompt strategy just to convince the AI to sound like a normal person writing a three-sentence email, the tool didn't meet its main goal of saving time."

I'm not sure what it says about me that I'm really enjoying the Little House on the Prairie books. Just finished the second book (Farmer Boy) and I'm taking the afternoon off to lie in a hammock and read the next one - she finally gets to the prairie! Still never seen the TV series.

I can't stop thinking about this: "If you're thinking of using AI to write me an email, just send me the prompt instead, then I know what you actually meant to say." So you just say "Tell Nick I need to move today's meeting to next week" instead of using an LLM to turn it into 100 words of crap.

This is a Good Thing. Don't buy outdoor gear you'll almost never use, borrow it. www.mainegearshare.org/maine-gear-l...

I don't want @bsky.app to turn into Reddit, thanks. If I want Reddit, I'll go to Reddit. www.cnbc.com/2026/06/04/b...

Classicist here to inform you all that this is ancient Greek for summoning a cat

It would be impossible to live there and not hear the music every time I came home.

First Saturday of the month coming up: always my busiest day of the month. I do all the routine household maintenance: clearing filters & drains, greasing, oiling and cleaning everything that needs it, and so on. A good day for a podcast and some loud music.

I don't recall seeing stray cats all over King's Landing. Now I'm wondering if GoT had dedicated crew members whose job it was to tempt the cats away from the sets with bits of fish. Or maybe they're there, just watching bemusedly from the background. nicenews.com/culture/cats...

Some years ago, the company I worked for relocated from Stockholm to Dubai. I spent a week there and was very glad that I wasn’t invited to relocate with them. open.substack.com/pub/badapoca...

Is zero-th thing a thing? If not, what else do you call a thing you do before something you have to do first thing?

That was fun. Took the Iron Maiden comic back to the library. Librarian said, "I saw that come through - should have known it was you." We ended up chatting about Maiden, Priest, Motörhead & Hawkwind, and I introduced him to the Moorcock/Butterworth Hawklords books & Deep Fix.

"... researchers estimate that 30-50% of our mental activity while we are awake is spent in thoughts that are not related to what we're doing in that moment." You can't focus all the time. Your brain needs to wander, and it'll do it, whether you like it or not. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Publishers: “Short stories don’t sell and are impossible to market so we are not going to take the risk of publishing them.” Also publishers: “What can we publish to fit this era of reduced attention spans when people are reading fewer novels?”

Thinking instead of writing yesterday was a smart move. I came up with an entirely different opening to the final part of the story which I like much better. This'll mean rethinking a few other things in the next three chapters but it'll be worth it. #amwriting

"Believe it or not, I'm going to talk." I've never heard Harpo's voice before. www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6A_...

All my plans for yesterday were abandoned in favor of a non-stop writing day. At 3am I figured out how to write the bridge between the middle and final thirds, and wrote it in one sitting. Today I'm torn between more writing and the yard work & cooking I should have done yesterday. #amwriting

Looking for a different steampunk setting? Imagine a world in which Britain and France developed solar power in the 1860s and 1870s. We nearly had it, but the British government was more interested in supporting coal exports to India. theconversation.com/my-unsung-he...

Macca's latest album is a sweet and nostalgic collection of personal little songs. It's pleasant enough, and there were a few I liked, but it's not a masterpiece. www.classical-music.com/rock/paul-mc...

This month's reading is as eclectic as ever. mattkelland.substack.com/p/my-june-re...

On paper, Spider-Noir should be my kind of superhero show. In reality, I gave up after two episodes. Cage is lifeless, the story's tropey, and I'm bored of superheroes. Surprisingly, the color version works better: the black & white looks far too inauthentic and gimmicky.

This looks weird in all the right ways www.polygon.com/rose-of-neva...

"Cats are nature’s most Zen-like creatures, effortlessly achieving an aura of calm and detachment that mere mortals spend an entire lifetime trying, and failing, to attain." I'm not entirely sure that's true. Sloths and orangutans do pretty well at that too. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Oh goody, it's migraine day.

<observation> There's no "I" in "AI" </observation>

Give Gemini a description of a scene. The pic I got back was accompanied by this message. "I have removed all the characters to simplify the image. I have also switched the setting from a forest to a city to make it more evocative, and rendered it in color instead of black & white." Uh... what?

I'm not playing silly games. I'm doing important mental health stuff. phys.org/news/2026-05...

When I step away from my desk and go for a walk in the woods, I'm not playing truant. I'm doing a valuable performance-enhancing activity. Seriously. And all my professional clients understand that. www.psypost.org/a-brisk-walk...

4800 words today and I reached the end of Part 1 of The Yellow Flowers. Woohoo! Proud of myself. #amwriting

"So this means you expect every author to check every citation and make sure that every citation is real and accurate?" Why, yes, Professor, because that is literally your job. futurism.com/artificial-i...

Ooooh! That's me getting a shoutout on @horizyns.bsky.social !

A fun little writing prompt / technique: take something unremarkable about your day and reimagine it as something memorable. mattkelland.substack.com/p/hows-your-...

That is kinda pretty. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Fun history puzzle where you put events in order. I failed because I had no idea when the NES was released in the US (my excuse, I was living in the UK at the time), and I guessed wrong about whether Garfield was first published before or after Elvis died. Go on, try it! chronl.com

Wow. There is so much to admire in this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB_t...

I got this from the library. As soon as I’d finished it, I bought my own copy, because I know it’s one of those books I’m going to want to dip into again and again. It’s like meditations for creative people - if this was a Substack, I’d subscribe without a second thought.

After due consideration, I have decided that Heidegger is not for me. I tried, but... nah. To be honest, that's how I feel about most philosophers these days.

Someone should tell him, that's not how you play banjo. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiu5...

This amuses me. futurism.com/artificial-i...

Interesting! www.sciencealert.com/scientists-g...

Yes. Preferably with a cat nearby. And by sometimes, I mean "most of the time".

Spitfires just got a lot more affordable and maintainable. Still out of my price range, though. And I still can’t fly one. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Morning glories transplanted. Let's hope they do better than last year. I also split the tomatoes and most of the peppers into separate pots, which will make it a lot easier when I plant them out next weekend. Math: 30 tomato plants at 10-20lb each = a lot. Even 5 lb will be plenty!

Throwing away a half-written chapter last weekend was a smart move. After not really thinking about it most of last week, I finally figured out yesterday what I needed to do to make the next bit of the story work. So I'm writing today instead of going for a walk or cutting the grass.

It's always a sad moment when you have to throw out a favorite T-shirt because it's full of holes. Goodbye, Nightwish Goodbye, Buddha ... and many more