[This is a guest post by Anna Brandenberger, Hanna Mularczyk, and Dora Woodruff (MIT). This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] In late September and early October, we distributed a survey of early career mathematicians. Our goals were to take a “temperature check” of the community, and to give early career mathematicians a centralized, targeted platform to share their views on AI (the survey was not a rigorous data analysis effort). The…

Item 1: Polymarket. I didn’t place any Polymarket or other bets on the midterms. I only stick to betting against the “Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal” or “mention markets” (against Trump mentioning crypto). Those are the only things I trade, because I have an actual edge. I don’t trade things where I have no information advantage or insufficient confidence. So far this has gone really well, and I’m up 400-500% on those contracts in a little over 4 months: This was the easiest payday…

Soft opening today in the former Parnassus Starbucks spot: a Coffee Bar. Some nice coffee and, as before, an incredible view out around back. Like today's, uh, view of an incredibly dense wall of fog. #SanFrancisco

Steiner triples Several examples from the recent posts on finite geometry are special cases of Steiner triples. A Steiner triple system, written STS(n), is a set S of n elements and a collection of three-element subsets of S called blocks, such that every two-element subset of S belongs to exactly one block. STS(7) is the smallest finite projective plane, the Fano plane, and STS(9) is the smallest finite affine plane. In both cases you interpret the elements of S as points and the blocks as…

Hope you had blessed Sunday! ✝️🙏 Time for another Catholic Meme Monday. The post Catholic Meme Monday— Issue 250 first appeared on The Simple Catholic. The post Catholic Meme Monday— Issue 250 appeared first on The Simple Catholic.

WOLVERINE 4TH EDITION — WEAPON X X-MEN (TOY BIZ) “A top-secret government project transformed the Mutant named Logan into the unbeatable warrior Weapon X. He was given unbreakable adamantium claws and a battle simulation helmet which created imaginary battle scenes that looked virtually real. Using these unique training weapons, Weapon X sharpened his combat skills to perfection. The ultimate secret agent, Weapon X later used his high-tech training to become the heroic X-Man Wolverine!”…

This week was full of interesting stuff, a first-time experience and a very cozy weather. I’m still sleeping with a fan on (even if it’s cold) and I need to cancel my gym subscription, I don’t think it’s working out and I could save the money… Anyway, here are some things of note this week, from November 3 to 9, 2026! ✍️ I am slowly catching up on my reviews. I posted the ones for all the books I read during October, but I’m still behind on my reviews for Echoes of the Eye and for Strange…

For our first full day in Venice we planned to visit the Biennale in the morning and then go to an opera in the afternoon. First, we needed breakfast.Our room was on the first floor, above the main floor. Here the ground floor is floor zero, the floor above is the first floor. The main floor opens to the canal on one end and a walled garden on the other. You leave through the garden on foot, you leave by boat through the other. Rowboats are stacked on one wall. This dark, old brick hall is…

Pook-Emu Bee links have been sporadic lately. But my backlog grows. It is time for me to get back to work (before work-work, that is). How I avoided tech unpleasantness 1 | Your Gmail and Photos could now fuel Google’s personalized ads. Shimul Sood for Android Authority. Oct. 23, 2026. Speak for yourself. My primary email is Posteo and I don’t use Google Photos. 2 | Applebee’s exposed customers’ personal data after leaving database password in app. Zack Whittaker for TechCrunch. Oct. 30, 2026.…

The one thing most of us strive for in life is some measure of consistency. The sphere of life doesn’t matter. When we can achieve some modicum of consistency in an inconsistent and inconstant world it’s a plus. That’s certainly true with whatever tech we surround ourselves with. Sadly, sometimes comically, the inconsistency is the only constant thing in these days of rapid technology changes. I’m not a fan. While this post is mostly about Apple sound issues relating to AirPods and HomePods,…

One of my responsibilities on the Linux Kernel team is to build our version of the Linux Kernel from distinct branched in a git repo. Our approach is a little different than most organizations, and so we have custom code to implement our logic. Over time, I have come to realize a few patterns that make our lives easier in how I approach organizing this code. Table of contents Use a real programming language Wrap Shell Commands Unit Tests Break up Long Running Tasks Don't functional test against…

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I was reading a random blog post the other day, after watching a video about how social media platforms incentivize rage bait content and suddenly a thought hit me. A small sample of the 300+ blogs I currently follow. I think, out of most of the people I know, I manage to see the least rage bait. Why is that? I think it's because, unlike most people these days, I read blogs not social media. I read the news, of course, and that makes me mad. But the news isn't the same thing. I don't see the…

We watch a lot of football here at Weir HQ. Well, Mrs Weir watches a lot of football; I just suffer the consequences. So who’d have thought that a game where you can actually see less of what’s happening would prove quite so entertaining?

The lens of elephant-in-the-room and the blind men who are individually only perceiving parts of it make for powerful framing to examine systems and change. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) coding tools are transforming software production and work. To benefit, organizations must integrate AI into processes, enforce stricter quality controls, manage automation risks, and adapt training, career paths, and governance to sustained AI-assisted development. AI: The Blind-Men Elephant in the…

Monday, November 9, 2026 - 08:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project It's pretty rare for me to cover any publications that deal exclusively with male same-sex topics, but this article laying out the case for the "marriage-like" symbolism in the tomb of two ancient Egyptian men is worth studying for the process of analysis. Brief references to this couple show upregularly in "sound-bite" queer history contexts, but the full context is both more interesting and less straightforward. For examples…

Looks like Paul Ford started yet another company, and they sorta vibe-coded an office suite that stores data in the URL.

My favorite way to illustrate the difference between expected and observed values is to use US Senate data on gender distribution. Why this data? There are 100 senators, two from each state. Gender is randomly distributed. So, comparing the observed data (the actual number of women senators) to the expected value of 50 senators is a pretty intuitive, easy-to-follow example. I then immediately discuss the same O vs. E discrepancy with the House of Representatives data, which doesn't start on a…

Why do men stupefy themselves? Tolstoy asked and answered the question of alcohol consumption by painting the picture of man as fundamentally conflicted: a fallen angel with nobility in his soul, and a scrabbling caveman, toiling just to stay alive. When the noble and saintly man considers his real circumstances, and the squalor and work he must endure, it is only through numbing his very being that he can live with himself. That man’s conduct and his conscience are in constant friction, and…

A signature dish of the Mawu people of eastern Ghana is Ɔgbàkusi gu kàmɔ̃ krã, a rich stew from cowpeas, palm oil, chili served with a thick porridge from local brown rice. If you’re lucky there might be some bushmeat in it. The dish is valued not just for its savoury taste (mɛ̃rɛ̃mɛ̃rɛ̃) but also for its rich oily appearance (gelegele), the smooth texture of the porridge (sɔlɔsɔlɔ) and its overall succulent, juicy quality, described with the ideophone dɛgɛdɛgɛ which resonates with sensory…

I like how clean Scripting News looks in the markdown version. No tabs along the top, no column of links (blogroll) along the right, just an emphasis on the text. Clean. Easier to read.

Weekly cleaning and home improvement series, with some thoughts in between. Last night during journalling, I did my usual ritual of pulling a tarot card for the following day. I pulled the four of wands, which represents celebration. A thought came immediately to mind: it's been a week since I started my new bedtime routine. Deck is from Queer Tarot by Ash and Chess. Since then, I've been staying on top of my tasks and finding ways to enjoy the little things inside my home. I wake up to a clean…

My other Bandcamp Friday pickup from last week. Really fascinating album - jumping all over the place stylistically, from very active funk-rock to a more meandering kind of groove. Absolutely fantastic saxophone playing.

I ought to have been writing this in the run-up to Halloween but as I’ve said before, Halloween here is a state of mind, not a mere twenty-four hours. The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult received a mention in the recent post about Charles Williams, two of whose novels were included in the collection. The paperback series was brought to mind again last week when another of the titles, The Prisoner in the Opal by AEW Mason, turned up at Standard Ebooks, the home of high-quality,…

Drew eagerly led us onto the plane with her timbits. No fear in this one! The last time she flew she was only 2, so I think this will feel pretty different for her! The post Ready to Go appeared first on @Kevuhnn / 📸 / 📚 / 🇨🇦.

It's been a long time since I joined in a blogging game, but I saw this one yesterday and well, I couldn't resist. Robert Birming, who is apparently really good at coming up with these kinds of things, came up with Knowember, a change to introduce readers to the person behind the blog. Now, this blog's been around since 2000, but I can't remember the last time I actually wrote an introduction post other than the About page. Maybe never? Now's as good a time as any! Ok, here we go... A photo My…

Your AI subscription won't get more expensive. It will just stop getting better while the new plans above it do. A prediction, written down now so I can say I told you so later.

Vita lavorativa Battute finali del collaudo sul progetto che ho seguito in questo 2026 come team leader e responsabile dello sviluppo backend. Progetti Piccoli miglioramenti su owlcode.it: nuova descrizione e modifica completa delle keyword della homepage. Resting never die! E' stata aperta una richiesta per una nuova funzionalità in Resting. Una richiesta piuttosto sentita visto che l’utente mi ha segnalato questa funzionalità sia con issue nel progetto che utilizzando l’e-mail di supporto.

Much of the feedback on my recent article on Reasons to Dislike AI Coding featured a dismissal of a collection of common themes in arguments against AI coding, without any thesis. That post was indeed my way of collecting thoughts, and connecting them to existing articles where I’d already addressed some of the concerns: I don’t think I dismissed the thematic arguments so much as referred to my own, or other, arguments. Here we are, a month later, and I’m ready for the synthesis. For a lot of…