Anyone know how to get an e-mail to a human at #bibliovault or #uchicagopress ? I've bought an #epub to read on my #thorium Linux reader. I paste the passphrase from bibliovault.org into Thorium to unlock the book, and am told that it's wrong. I write [email protected] and […]

Could Trump really be the first person in history to win the FIFA Peace Prize not just once, but twice!? https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/may/01/donald-trump-urges-pga-tour-welcome-back-liv-rebels-golf

An explicit solution to #blackscholes implied #volatility that's 3.4× faster than SOTA benchmarks? Good work! Even cooler that it comes out of the University of #liechtenstein. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.24480

"Responses to Extreme Temperatures: Migrant Networks and International Migration from El Salvador", Ibáñez, Quigua, Romero & Velásquez (AEJ Policy, 2026) We show that exposure to extreme temperatures significantly increases international migration from El Salvador, where nearly **a quarter** of […]

Just catching up on my mail, when I (belatedly) saw April's NBER digest: China's Rise in Global Research "Between 1980 and 2022, China's share of global research publications in **top journals** rose from a negligible level to 32 percent, while the US share declined from 60 to about 24 percent […]

When Graham Martin, the U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, suggested that most Vietnamese refugees should head to coastal points, where American ships would attempt to pick them up, Mr. Rosenblatt and Mr. Johnstone, both of whom had served in diplomatic postings in Vietnam, grew alarmed at his […]

"I think an invisible Trump class battleship could have saved Phelan's job. Imagine a stealth battleship only the worthy could see and would be something Trump could post endless messages about. And, an invisible battleship could be built more quickly and, possibly, more cheaply even after a […]

"As it turns out, fish indeed get wired when on cocaine. In a study published Monday in the journal Current Biology, Dr. Brand and his colleagues show that coked-up salmon swim faster and travel farther than their sober counterparts. This study prompts additional questions about the effects that […]

<>I can name some very important examples of artists who have spoken out in politics and it did make a difference. So my examples are Beethoven, who crossed out the dedication of the Third Symphony to Napoleon. And my great countryman Béla Bartók, who left fascist Hungary in 1940 because he […]

At Gary Hauch's funeral today, the officiating minister told a story from when he studied under Gary. Noticing that Gary left his sermon notes on the pulpit after a service, he asked Gary if he could keep them. "Of course", said Gary, his eyes twinkling. The minister discovers a single piece of […]

"Compared with the other countries, more people in Japan also thought that things such as their nationality, gender, sexual orientation and disability did limit how much they could succeed." https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/04/08/japan/society/18-yo-survey/ Would be interested how that […]

[KLEIN] He roasts you at the end of the experiment. [Laughs.] You finish this up, and he says that you are low on inner-life experience. [POLLAN] Very little inner life, yes. I didn’t know how to take this. I mean, we all think we have a lively inner life, but the absence of one never occurred […]

a core group of individuals— Rounder, her sister Aurora, and a young, unrelated whale named Ariel—spent the most time lifting the #newborn. But every #whale in the group acted as “a primary supporter” at some point, including the sole male, an adolescent named Allan who was starting to leave the […]

These truths we hold to be self-evident: 🐙>🦞 🐙>🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞 Is it then also true that: 🐙 >🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞? #octopus #greaterthan #lobster

Re: social media bans for youth & children, do we know anything about how benefits/harm varies by feed protocol? I'd *guess* that platforms like Mastodon, without an algo feed, offer a lot of protection - partly by encouraging agency. #socialmediaban

One night, my sled dogs and I were gliding through a birch forest in Wisconsin when a black wolf emerged from the trees and ran beside us. None of the dogs even barked. They treated him as a peer, which unnerved me — the eye contact they made. If my dogs related to the wolf, and I to them, then […]

The word 'soar' is a procope, reflecting birds' descent from dinosaurs. #lowqualityfacts

#agi unlocked #claude #aieconomy #econsky

#anthropic latest economic paper, "Labor market impacts of AI". Figure 2 in the main paper suggests we might be able to finally fulfill #jonimitchell's vision, and get back to the garden. https://www.anthropic.com/research/labor-market-impacts

"As recently as 2014, Texas Republicans were advocating a guest-worker program, compassion for immigrants, and for a general kind of traditional American pluralism in what was becoming a very diverse and complex state. That’s all gone. The governor can’t post a picture of a Diwali celebration […]

"Researchers learned this the hard way. They gave quartz, calcite and other types of crystals to chimpanzees in a rehabilitation center. The apes responded with great interest, and the researchers ended up needing to trade large amounts of bananas and yogurt to get back the largest crystal […]

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on! I did not expect this: "Google Workers Seek ‘Red Lines’ on Military A.I., Echoing Anthropic" https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/technology/google-deepmind-letter-pentagon.html

Idea for a new prize: big LLM maker segments its training data (or maybe even just #commoncrawl) by originating person, runs DataSHAP on the segments, gives a prize to the highest scorer. I have no idea how to think about who it would be.

Emir Kusturica's Underground, but in the online world of clawBots writing hit pieces.

#grok #xai #inferno https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/13/elon-musk-xai-datacenters-air-pollution-mississippi#img-2

How to win a Nobel: "It seems presumptuous to have a section titled ‘‘Conclusion’’ in a paper like this that consists mostly of thinly supported speculation. This paper has improved on the even vaguer speculations in Sims (1998)... the resulting setup seems more realistic than adjustment cost […]

He auditioned twice, he said. The second time, Mr. MacGowan and Mr. Finer told him that he would be allowed only two drums, a snare and a floor tom, and that he would have to stand when playing them. “No cymbals,” he recalled them telling him, “but you can have a saucepan lid.” […]

"Mark Zuckerberg carries around $30 million in his wallet in case he runs into an OpenAI engineer at Starbucks." (Matt Levine, Money Stuff, 9 Feb)

In The Economic Impact of Brexit (NBER Working Paper 34459), Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka, and Gregory Thwaites estimate that by 2025, the Brexit process had reduced UK GDP per capita by 6 to 8 percent, investment by 12 to 18 […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

DullesT?

Has #darioamodei ever had a serious public discussion about his China stance? His view: don't let them get the chips - #agi is too important to let authoritarian China get there ahead of democratic US & its allies (q.v. #davos panel w #DemisHassabis , his new essay - which is otherwise […]

This is a serious work of bearing witness. To me, it seems consistent with Rabbi Greenberg's principle, and echoes Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial: > Wall of Tears: 50ft Brooklyn mural pays tribute to children killed in Gaza > […]

#ladyborden #ifanyonebuildsiteveryonedies #yudkowskyeliezer #soaresnate #icecream #strawberry

For some reasons, after finishing the paper, I decided to flip through the references. #sciguy #UTS #universityoftorontoschools #liveforever

Five years ago, I watched an amazing Russian TV series, House Arrest, about official corruption pervading Russian government. I had no idea how this had aired, until the episode in which the protagonist prepares to meet the President. He's smart and honest, his handlers advise our hero: make […]

My my, hey hey, rock'n'roll is here to stay: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/neil-young-trashes-amazon-greenland-free-music-1235505119/ #neilyoung #greenland #amazon #jeffbezos #ice

The first responses to #carney's #davos #wef speech I heard were unambiguously positive: viral; Czechs excited by #havel; stoic Norwegians shedding tears; FT columnist's praise; Aussie ex-PMs... Then I spoke to American friends, and heard two unambiguously negative replies: (a) it wasn't a […]

Mr. Borchardt was still working as a literary agent, at his East 57th Street offices, at the age of 92. What he prized in a writer, he said at the time, was a “sense of style and language.” He added that he had certain stipulations before championing a manuscript. “For nonfiction,” he said, “a […]

Excellent article about an excellent man, Philippe Sands: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/magazine/genocide-trial-human-right-international-law.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FlA.NfEC.2OHnorOfn8DS&smid=url-share

Excited to try out #moxiemarlinspike's new #confer #llm. On my Linux laptop, I'm asked to "touch [my] security key to continue". If I don't have a physical security key, and haven't configured a software key, what's the best way to proceed?

I hadn't heard of #jamestalarico, but it is refreshing to see someone presenting himself as a Christian, who seems to actually heed Jesus' example: "you have an entire political movement using Christianity to prioritize two issues that Jesus never talked about. ... to focus on those two things […]

"There’s this Chekhov quote that I’m kind of living by lately. He says a work of art doesn’t have to solve a problem — it just has to formulate it correctly." https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/magazine/george-saunders-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.D1A.zq-o.gPtvNtEW-N-5&smid=url-share

Having just finished Metaxas' biography of Bonhoeffer, I looked up Wedemeyer, his fiancée - and was struck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_von_Wedemeyer_Weller

<oy vey!> “But you knew that this is a Jewish child,” Hessy’s mother told the photographer. He replied, “I wanted to allow myself the pleasure of this joke.” Then he added: “You see, I was right. Of all the babies, they picked this baby as the perfect Aryan.” […]

Is anyone working on #vibeweaving, converting text descriptions or uploaded images into woven output?

An unexpected gift, especially to Chieu, who left me a puzzle that summer she sat my flat. (Comments very welcome! This is a #puzzle in progress.) 1/4

Bishop Sasse of Thuringia was first in line... His telegram to Hitler has been preserved: "My _Führer_, I report: in a great historic hour all the pastors of the Thuringian Evangelical Church, obeying an inner command, have with joyful hearts taken an oath of loyalty to _Führer_ and Reich... One […]

"dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself" - Tom Stoppard, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/theater/tom-stoppard-dead.html

Would you rather fight: (A) one recursive subroutine, or (B) Would you rather fight: (A) one recursive subroutine, or...?

@pierrealquier.bsky.social your move!