Always good to keep in mind that Guardian has a partnership with OpenAI.

I've never understood the arguments made by these types. Even if thereal are valid arguments about the need to manage the fox population etc the idea that therefore it must be done by charging around on horseback in a anachronistic class-infused ritual, rather than humanely, is prima facie absurd.

Remember all the fuss when Farage was ‘de-banked’ by Coutts? Night after night on the news, little Nigel throwing tantrums about being kicked out of a posh bank. This judge has been locked out of banking simply for a court decision Trump didn’t like. Has it made the news? Nah!

Just so I'm clear on this, computer memory has tripled in price because a bunch of it that hasn't been produced yet has been ordered to populate GPUs that aren't installed in data centers that aren't built yet in order to service a demand that doesn't exist to make profits that don't happen.

Yes, this!: "this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning" I'm finding that I don't have just to change assignments. I have to **abandon my entire teaching strategy**, which has always been built around scaffolded independent projects across the semester.

The contrast between the message (and indeed messenger) on the one side, and the populist Right on the other was/is stark. The monarchy could be a subtle bulwark against populism, which can be easily cast as very un-British.

every time I can recall from history that a group has centered a culture of martial virtue to the point of conflict, the "soft intellectuals" the warriors distinguish themselves from have learned war real quick, dominate because they pay attention to details, and then go back to art and nerdy stuff

One of the most conservative organizations in the world, again, selects a leader who seems more moderate, passionate, and reasonable than most leaders of conservative political parties.

The President personally designing battleships because he wants them to look badass is not doing much to challenge the "everyone is 12 now" theory of American governance.

This Christmas let’s not forget the reason for the season (Earth's 23.5-degree axial tilt)

A propos of nothing at all - Everything I read about Stephen Miller suggests he's an absolutely lovely chap and in no way the sort of sociopathic nazi some have made him out to be.

The Pope offers a pretty standard sort of Christian message. We might guess that a frothing condemnation for unacceptable wokery will be incoming from the US "christian" right in a matter of moments ...

TL serendipity ...

Wish there were still TV programmmes interviewing French critical theorists

Very impressed with anyone who can do an end of year round up. My time series is ‘about 20 years ago’, ‘recently’ and ‘I promise I’ll get round to it soon.’

Second anniversary of our Apple TV’s spectacular attempt to understand me asking for “Hercule Poirot’s Christmas”

Today's exhibit in the ongoing series: "Whatever valuable uses AI might have (tbc) they are currently massively outweighed by the damage it is doing to the quality of public discourse through the corrosive epistemological uncertainty it is creating".

But what does Barry from Kettering, former supporter of the BNP, and current Reform UK voter, think? He’s the only one that matters.

That visa sanctioning of Breton et al signals a stark worldview. In asserting its "sovereignty" in this way the US is denying that any other country has a legimate right to sovereignty over their own territory. The only view that is acceptable is that emanating from DC. Not a stable equilibrium.

The people who profited most from the cancel culture/free speech panic were less interested in actual freedom of speech than establishing their own control over public discourse. You don't even have to take my word for it. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

The US's enemies are those who fight hate speech and disinformation... Wow.

Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time.

"Trump boasts in ... the strategy that, at last, ‘America is strong and respected again”. The problem is that this obviously isn’t true. Countries ... treat it like an angry, incoherent drunk with a bazooka. You say whatever you hope might calm them down, but you certainly don’t respect them."

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

This is right. I would also add: the counter-reaction also obscures how these technologies are actually useful. So we end up with hype and counter-hype but too little institutional change to enable us to deploy technologies in the most socially useful way. See regulation of social media, AI.

“AI is ruining the achievements of 3,000 years of meticulous scholarship. And they are refusing to pay me for my part in the destruction.” Does seem to be the wrong battle.

Generative AI is for losers. It’s so embarrassing to watch people debase real artists, the environment, and themselves for a sloppy, rip-off of a party trick.

Amazing, they’re trying to build the Fourth Reich out of old stories about how kids aren’t allowed to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep

One thing I'm finding surprising about this whole thing about AI hallucinating academic references which are then cited and enter the "evidence base" is how many authors seem willing to cite material that they haven't even verified exists, let alone got as far as actually reading. V poor practice.

I often refer to James C Scott’s account of what he calls weapons of the weak: Sabotage, foot-dragging, evasion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, arson, dissimulation, and slander. What I didn’t expect is that it would become a pitch perfect description of the US Administration.

Grassroots groups, voters, and local lawmakers have managed to block or stall tens of billions of dollars’ worth of potential investment in proposed data centers. And they’re not letting up. This report from @justcalma.bsky.social is free to read for today only: www.theverge.com/science/8411...

This morning I encountered the music of Psychedelic Porn Crumpets for the first time. My day has definitely been improved as a result. If you are looking for some tight riff-heavy garage-y rock which makes some interesting high speed harmonic choices and has a slightly jazzy feel at times then ...

The price of coddling conservative ignorance and malice is astonishing.

V sensible for Labour to focus their entire policy strategy on the 8% of voters they’re losing to the right and permanently alienate the 29% they’re losing to the centre/left.

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Blindingly simple and bleedingly obvious.

Yes...ha ha ha...FUCKING YES!!!

Beginning to wonder if this barrel even has a bottom.

The sooner the AI twats understand that art and literature are expertly-crafted luxury goods, and not something you get from a vending machine, the better off we will all be.

A lot of geopolitical analysis underprices the risks to global stability from ageing leaders turning into senile fruitcakes

An absolute bedrock institution for understanding how the planet works, just civilization-scaled vandalism by the most incurious morons on Earth

Am I mad that he keeps failing upwards or am I happy they won't have someone more competent in the role?