“AI systems… will transform the discipline: they will make philosophy more capital-intensive. “ The following is a guest post by David Strohmaier, a philosopher and computer scientist in the Natural Language and Information Processing group at the University of Cambridge. In it, he explains why he thinks it’s reasonable to believe that AI systems will eventually have the capacities to “drive” philosophy, and how this will change the economics of philosophy. AI for Philosophy: Progress through…

Updated October 2026 Barefoot in Paris, Ina’s love letter to her favorite city and cuisine, was one of the first Ina cookbooks I owned and will always have a special place in my heart. French cooking is really the through line in Ina’s cookbooks. It’s the base, the core, and the backbone of so much of her repertoire. After spending four months camping in France, Ina taught herself to cook by working her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and the rest is herstory.…

Blue Planet III. I have incredible core memories of watching this series in my house in Lebanon as a single man, before I began my transition into a husband and then father. Being able to sit here and watch this with both my sons hopefully will become another core memory for me. Also the song is for this trailer is incredible. (Via KDO).

This is a guest article by Sam Parkinson, the creator of Pension Sprout. A recent Monevator piece about Gen Z and pensions quoted a young reader stating flatly: “I don’t believe that I’ll be a recipient of a State Pension.” I’ve read a lot of responses to that sort of line. Mostly they’re some variation of “don’t worry, it’ll be fine”, which is unconvincing and slightly patronising because nobody actually knows the future. Indeed while the recently-mooted shake-up of the State Pension’s…

[This “mindless entertainment” hardly seems mindless at all.] Former NFL coach Mike Tomlin put together an impressive resume during his 19 years leading the Pittsburgh Steelers, including a Super Bowl win in 2009. Over some of those years, he also put together an impressive city in Minecraft. He and his sons are now showing it off to the world, and the internet is loving it. His first video already has over three million views and counting. Previously in massive undertakings to build virtual…

Translated from Korean into English by Seon Jae An. This book isn't out yet, but will be in a few days. I received a digital ARC from the publisher (thank you!). This was one of my most anticipated reads, so I was excited to be able to read it early. This is a speculative fiction told from two different points of view. Half of the chapters follow a man who's been kicked out of his parents' home for being 'useless'. The other half is dedicated to a woman who has been working as a primate keeper…

Billy Strings Stephen Wilson, Jr. The Avett Brothers Summertime concerts. Billy Strings has what must be the most athletic hands in the world. He can play for hours and hours. Amazing talent. Stephen Wilson, Jr. was fun. I really enjoyed when he went into the crowd. The Avett Brothers, which I only took a single photo of, were a tour de force. They really put a lot of effort and energy into their performance. By far the best performers I’ve seen in a very long time.

Last week, I facilitated a panel of impressive and accomplished CPTOs on the realities of the role, how they got into it and – especially in light of current AI developments – where they think it’s heading next. Here are some notes. No set path into the role The CPTOs were from a range of backgrounds, and they had really interesting career journeys. Broadly, two were from a product background and two from an engineering background (including one who started out working on building planes) but…

“Sky island” in Puebla as seen from Veracruz, probably Volcán La Malinche, 4 October 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) 8 October 2026 The mountains in Veracruz are very beautiful. On the morning of 4 October, fog shrouded the valley so that Volcán la Malinche(*) was literally a sky island. (*I am not sure of the name of this peak.) Also from our elevated vantage point, we saw snow-covered Pico de Orizaba above the crest of the intervening hill. Click here for a marked-up photo showing where to…

Went out to dinner last night. The first autumn menu at our restaurant. Venison three ways, a potato and black pudding terrine, squash puree. Just a placeholder today. READING: RED SHEET, James Ellroy (UK) (US+).DRINK: Pocketful Of Stones Cornish whisky, which I can’t link to because the website’s cookie-permissions panel won’t go away and everything is broken MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

An article in the Guardian describes how Co-op Legal Services are using a system produced by OpenAI to implement a quantified panopticon for their staff. In a system described as “oppressive and dystopian” by a whistleblower, Co-op Legal Services is using AI models to record, analyse and award a percentage score for interactions between agents and customers seeking advice about probate, wills and estates. A model from OpenAI has been trained to assess more than 50 discrete aspects of each phone…

In technology, “boring” is usually meant as an insult. It suggests something old, conservative, unimaginative, or simply behind the times. In infrastructure, though, boring can be one of the nicest things you can say about a system. A boring system is often one that has been around long enough for people to understand it. Its failure modes are known, its tools are mature, its documentation exists, and the strange edge cases have usually hurt somebody else first. With luck, that person wrote…

How about these great images of the incoming batch of conscripts (Värnpliktig) reporting for service with the Stockholms Amfibieregemente (Amf 1, the 1st Marine Regiment) in Sweden? On day one, before they even go for their equipment draw or haircut, they meet their new (to them, at least) Automatkarbin 5, or Ak5. The Swedes had gotten away from conscription in 2007 then resumed it in 2017 as Russia got increasingly, well, Russia. Note that big winter triggerguard, something needed in Sweden,…

From the PAO of the nation’s tall ship: Eagle is excited to announce our recently approved 2027 deployment schedule. We are excited to set sail and visit many of our European and Arctic partners; return to Eagle’s birthplace in Hamburg, Germany; take part in the Rouen Armada Tall Ship Festival in Rouen, France; and support the opening of the National Coast Guard Museum in New London. Let’s Get Salty! Mon, 19 April — Depart New London, CT Saint John’s, Newfoundland, Canada Sun, 25 April — Wed,…

Commissioned 110 years ago this week: the Sampson-class tin can USS Davis (DD-65). Built in 17 months at Bath Iron Works in Maine, she was commissioned on 5 October 1916 after being christened by the granddaughter of the late Civil War-era admiral. At just some 315 feet in length and 1,225 tons displacement, she could make 29.5 knots and carried a full dozen 21-inch torpedo tubes in four triple mounts as well as four 4″/50 guns and a 1-pounder balloon gun. Broadside view of Davis in Hampton…

Here are 77 brilliant selections from 62 presses, plus lists of special mentions. Our devotion extends to all of the editors and writers worldwide who helped to gather this Small Good Thing, our 50th year! And of course our thanks to you Dear Reader. Without your caring it is all futile. Bill Henderson, Introduction You’re welcome, Mr. Henderson. And thank you for providing such a broad view of the year’s short publications. I’m going to get to my usual wrap-up content of general impressions…

I don’t remember where I got this quote from, but it’s great: “The drawing you make will always be better than the drawing you didn’t make at all.”

First Photowalk of October Went on a wee photowalk here with my Ricoh GR III camera. I am trying to get used to the 28mm focal length and think I am getting better with it. Decided to shoot digital for a while to save money. I prefer film but it is expensive to shoot. For this walk, I had nothing in mind, I was just listening to an albumn I like and going around town on a kind of extended circle route that ended up back at mine. I’m using some film simulation recipes on these shots, I got them…

BlogCat got a new Youtube subscriptions page Made a really nice feature today after a friend requested it, added a new page to BlogCat that will list all the Youtube Channels you subscribed as a thumbnail grid, much like a non-algorithmic version of their home page. That means that you can use BlogCat to subscribe to channels, use the new page to view latest videos from the channels you subscribed, and use an alternative front-end to view the said videos such as invidious or nadeko. By…

13:58 - My preferred way of eating cucumbers: in hot noodle soup!

[1981]Speaking of The Nerves Jack Lee used to perform this one with his old band back in '77. This is from his debut 1981 solo record and of course you know it because a coupla years later Paul Young covered it and it was one of his biggest hits that was also included on his million selling album from 1983 No Parlez.However the original Jack Lee version is quite different: Melodious driving jangly power pop with some fantastic soaring tripped out guitars. Top stuff. Shoulda been all over the FM…

The 100 Famous Japanese Mountains or Nihon Hyakumeizan (日本百名山) are a list of 100 mountains picked by mountaineer Kyuya Fukada in 1964. These hundred mountains are very popular among Japanese hikers, and generally have good public transport access and well-maintained trails. I wouldn't say that these are necessarily the "100 best mountains in Japan" but for any hiker living in Japan, this is the list to check off. I climbed my first hyakumeizan a little over 4 years ago and have been steadily…

quick checkWonky rocking board is on the left and it still is rock free on the workbench. The other board that I got twist/rocking free is now rocking. I triedThere appeared to be a hump and I tried to plane it away. I knocked back some of it but not all. Rather then chase my tail on this I decided to put this board into the jig and flatten it that way.hard goingMy shortness of breath ramped up this AM big time. Trying to plane the hump off took a lot of calories and a lot of rest stops to…

After Hormizd IV was strangled with his own turban by his own followers in 590, his son became Iranian Emperor Khosrow II and faced the threat of the civil war leader Bahram Chobin heading his way. Khosrow sent a message to Bahram with a gentle warning:Khosrow, kings of kings, ruler over the ruling, lord of the peoples, prince of peace, salvation of men, among gods the good and eternally living man, among men the most esteemed god, the highly illustrious, the victor, the one who rises with the…

Today’s guest blog spoke to me. It’s written by the fabulous Muya, who is here for the very first time to ask the question: why have I never had an orgasm with a man? The experiences she describes, and the chase she embarks on, is something that resonates with me deeply – I hope it […] The post Guest blog: Why have I never had an orgasm with a man? appeared first on Girl on the Net.

After three long years I finally did some film photography last month. I picked up a film stock I had not previously shot with: Fujifilm 200. The name sounds suspiciously like Fujicolor C200 but this one is different and has none of the under- or over-exposure characterstics that would normally give C200 away. It looks warmer overall, almost like Kodak Gold … almost. If you wanted to save a pound, you could just get this new Fuji 200 stock, overexpose it, and call it a day. Nobody could tell…

I'm a theatrical cheapskate. I'm on all those last-minute seat-filler websites. I'll happily take a chance on an experimental play for a tenner a ticket or sit in an inexplicably unsold cheap seat at a major show. My philosophy is that the worst seat at the best show is preferable to the best seat at the worst show. But, once in a while, I'll splash out and pay full price. When the email landed in my inbox that Richard E. Grant (!!) and Christine Baranski (!!!) would be performing Noël Coward's…

The concept of Inbox Zero has been worn out by the productivity crowd over the years and you’ve most likely come across the genre yourself. The type of ideas that tell you to empty your inbox in an effort to attain a state of serene focus, and ascend to become the kind of knowledge worker who “processes” correspondence rather than merely reading it. To be fair, ever since “AI” has been widely adopted to write and even read e-mails, I haven’t heard much from the former Inbox Zero fans, but I…

Big overlap with Betteridge's law of headlinesAnother helpful diagram from Randall Munroe.