Friday 3 July, 2026

The Beeline Imagine how attractive these flowers would look if you were a bee. According to the invaluable Plantnet app, it’s Verbascum chaixii ViLL. Which is ‘Nettle leaved Mullein’ to the rest of us. Quote of the Day ”The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” John Kenneth Galbraith Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news J.S. Bach | Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring | Leo Kottke Link I once heard him play this live at the Cambridge Folk Festival sometime in the 1970s. And at one magical moment, the man sitting next to me began to whistle the chorale. And Kottke grinned in response. Long Read of the Day Greatness and the Machine An interesting essay by Brendan McCord, based on a lecture he delivered at the 2026 Cosmos Feast at the Château de Tocqueville in Normandy. In it he argues that AI poses an unprecedented threat to human freedom and independent thought in a way that Tocqueville feared. There were, he thought, two inter-related dangers…