I read an article this morning that broke down an Anthropic (owners of the Claude AI engine) report on why their agents weren’t returning accurate information even when the right answers were in the datasets it was reading. Let me say that again: Anthropic has developed, released, charged for, and heavily promoted ‘agentic AI’…and it… Continue reading Regulate AI Companies, Now
Category: Passions
All my posts about things-about-which-I-am-passionate-other-than-writing: you’ll find posts here on parenting, knitting, cooking, frugality, the environment, gardening and whatever else catches my eye this week.
Who Did Americans Fight In The War of Independence?
Hey US-type Americans, I have a question: Who were you fighting in 1776? The British? The English? Who? It’s Not Your Fault You’re Confused I’ve spend a LOT of this year reading newly-published books and articles, and listening to podcasts and talks around the topic of the American Revolution/War of Independence. As an immigrant to… Continue reading Who Did Americans Fight In The War of Independence?
A Republic, If You Can Keep It
250 years ago a choice was made. This was not inevitable. Nor was the country that came after it. And choices have continued to be made. What Comes Next? In the musical Hamilton, when George III realizes he’s lost the colonies, he switches from asserting ‘you’ll be back’ to asking “What comes next?…Do you know… Continue reading A Republic, If You Can Keep It
Thinking about Death
Yesterday was the anniversary of the day my Dad left us. This week, my dear friend Marta’s father joined him in the great whatever. A week or so ago, a friend my age finally stopped being able to outrun the chronic illness that should have prevented him doing the many remarkable things he did with… Continue reading Thinking about Death
How I Consume Books Now That Amazon is Evil
I own a first-generation Kindle. I was a member of Audible back in their pre-Amazon days when you could only listen to their stuff on a pre-iPod mp3-player and when they had different compression rates (Level 1 sounded terrible but downloaded quickly and didn’t take up much space on your device. It was also barely… Continue reading How I Consume Books Now That Amazon is Evil
A Productive Kitchen
A photo essay from August in the kitchen (it’s mostly tomatoes…)
Deported for Customs Form Error?
This could have been us. 30 years ago, when K was a scientist working at Harvard, the customs guys at Boston’s airport used to ask us if we were illegally smuggling haggis in our bags, as we stepped off the plane from Scotland (especially if it was near Burns’ Night). I would l laugh and… Continue reading Deported for Customs Form Error?
You Don’t Want An Aristocracy
I’ve been thinking about meritocracy, lately. It’s extremely hard to separate out the inbuilt advantages of the financially and genetically lucky, in any society, and give everyone a level playing field. But we should at least admit that some people start half-way to the finish line, if we think a meritocracy is worth striving for.… Continue reading You Don’t Want An Aristocracy
Not you, too, baseball?!
I am so angry about this. Have I begun harassing the baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred at: 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020? Yes. Here’s what I wrote: As a new season ticket holder this year I am appalled at your decision to scrub diversity from your website. You say it’s to comply with… Continue reading Not you, too, baseball?!
We are all Zelenskyy
“I would like Trump’s team to be more truthful,” said Vlodymyr Zelenskyy, today, speaking for all of us. Source When I went and looked at what he was responding to I may have (once again) screamed into the void: YOU CANT JUST SAY STUFF AND HAVE IT BE “TRUE”!!! Except, apparently you can just say… Continue reading We are all Zelenskyy