Alex MacLaren
@alexmaclaren.bsky.social
Reading, cooking, counting my blessings. Resident of Folkestone, UK
If I had the time, I would love to spend more of my life curating links in order to even slightly help sidestep the problems with search engines these days. Real links by real people is what's needed. www.theringer.com/2026/08/04/t...
The End of Google Search—and the Internet—as We Know It
For years now, Google has been tweaking its search formula to prop up AI and bury actual links. Now it’s rounding into its final form—and changing the internet forever.
theringer.com
Arguing that LLMs are anything more than a load of numbers going into a complicated mathematical function and spitting some more numbers out. Yes they simulate. But they simulate *language*. They do not simulate the cognitive processes underlying communication.
can't believe the guardian recommends cycling, ice-skating and incline walking as sensible activities to get up to while you're nursing a joint. i would recommend instead sticking on "temples of boom" and ordering dominos
in which we discuss -a thousand years of japanese pescatarianism -emperor meiji eats beef -ramen and black markets -the rise of japanese worcestershire sauce buttondown.com/theswordandt...
Notable Sandwiches #145: Yakisoba-Pan
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where my editor David Swanson and I slip messily through Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches. This week, a...
buttondown.com
Expect this to see this as my own opinion in conversations now
Anthony Painter@anthonypainter.bsky.social · 2d agoMy (the film) reading was this. Once you break the civilisational code then it all falls apart even if you do it with the best of intentions. Then come the suitors, the water people, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Rupert Lowe, the proud boys, raise the flag. And this also explains the backlash.
'Danish teenagers will have to make an oral defence of their written essays to combat AI cheating, the government has announced.' Piloting this for 2nd year undergraduate research essays this year, though NB it's not just policing: also develops key oral skills. 1/2
Danish pupils will have to orally defend essays in attempt to combat AI cheating
Government introduces several measures, including monitoring of computers, for pupils aged 16 to 19
theguardian.com
I am thrilled that this kind of insight is emerging. @bnerlich.bsky.social first unlocked this whole area for me and was the first to give me confidence in the uneasy intuitions I was having about digitally generated language and AI. I have instantly borrowed Hesse from the Internet Archive!
Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · 6d agoMetaphor, she wrote, "has cognitive implications". I think this point is still insufficiently appreciated in science, where metaphor seems often regarded as just a means of communicating ideas. In truth it shapes those ideas - which is why metaphors matter.
There needs to be better reaction than Robinson's, which must be either sarcasm or faked innocence. In the case of these people it is not puzzling at all. The puzzle is 'why invite them on and give them 12 minutes airtime in a lead slot'?
Laura Phillips@lauraphillips.bsky.social · 3d agoBBC’s Nick Robinson: ‘I always find it puzzling when we invite someone to talk on #BBCr4today at length & ask them to explain something they've said and they take up the time they've got (12 minutes in a lead slot as it happens) by attacking the BBC.’
KFC announces their frontier-class model briefly escaped its sandbox and attempted to exfiltrate the 27 herbs and spices
The best YouTube channel ever made has just dropped another of the best YouTube videos ever made. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGt7...
Johnny Depp's Bed
YouTube video by Bobby Fingers
youtube.com
The total amount a UK political party can spend in a General election year across 650 candidates is half that - and this was a single candidate in a single primary.
#StupidSuez@diplomatofnight.com · 4d agoNo matter the margin the story is that Haley Stevens got $70M of support, more than $30M of it from a single organization, and still lost.
Fun fact: the "numbers" in the phrase "numbers racket" were the middle three digits of the trading volume on the NYSE (chosen because they were published every day in the newspaper, and you wouldn't exactly trust a mob boss to draw a lottery honestly)
My Cousin Vinny but with grandmas and tribal rights
Kathryn Tewson@kathryntewson.bsky.social · 6d agoI have just been sent the transcript of a deposition my grandmother gave in 1977 while she was serving as an expert witness in a series of tribal rights cases and let me tell you, if nothing else this is proof that I come by it honest for every conceivable value of “it”
#filmsky, your help please. Is there some service whereby I can set an alert that nudges me when a particular film is given a London screening?
Quick reminder of the kind of graph Whitty and Valance had put in front of them
For those who always meant to catch up with this, or for those whose kids still haven’t seen it, the best ever comic book film is on iPlayer for a month:
Superman
Before his planet is destroyed, Jor-El sends his infant son to Earth. Raised by kindly farmers, a young Clark Kent discovers the source of his superhuman powers and moves to Metropolis to fight evil.
bbc.co.uk
This is INCREDIBLE news
Ada Palmer@adapalmer.bsky.social · last wk.Endometriosis takes nine years to diagnose. That’s about to change. NICE has approved two tests: a saliva test reading microRNA markers, and a gut-sensor test returning results in 45 minutes, sparing women the keyhole surgery currently needed. buff.ly/QX3jHk8 #ShareGoodNewsToo
#Ceuta: an extraordinary migration event nandosigona.info/2026/07/31/c...
Ceuta: a migration crisis or a diplomatic message?
Nando Sigona The speed and scale of the arrivals in Ceuta are difficult to explain as an ordinary migration event. According to provisional Spanish estimates, around 50,000 people crossed from Moro…
nandosigona.info
GM is not the country - esp where AB is concerned - but the general sense that Labour voters were happy enough to have an excuse to come back seems to be the general feel.
No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this. theonion.com/translator-o...
Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation
PHILADELPHIA—In a 4,500-word essay published in Harper’s Magazine, Emily Wilson, known for her popular translation of the Minions epic poem, blasted the latest film Thursday as a “sexless, bloodless” ...
theonion.com
I am very much enjoying the vertiginous pitch and roll of these essays about sandwiches
Tal Lavin@swordsjew.bsky.social · last wk.if you want a very exhaustive rundown of who didnt invent the sloppy joe i wrote it all down buttondown.com/theswordandt...
christ if that’s not a metaphor for our times
Today's post is a guest post by Yury Sorochkin on Claude's (Anthropic) 'Constitution' analysed using conceptual metaphor theory. It's great! Have a look! #AI #metaphor #AIMetaphorObservatory makingsciencepublic.com/2026/07/31/t...
The cage and the core: Metaphor in Claude’s constitution
This is a guest post by Yury Sorochkin, an Independent Scholar ••• In January 2026 Anthropic published an 84-page document called Claude’s Constitution. It was written, its authors say, prima…
makingsciencepublic.com
I salute Anthony Fauci, as much for his courage dealing with the HIV virus in the 80s as for his courage today, dealing with other viruses
I’m wondering if the profound peace I experience while looking for (and usually failing to find) eg blackberries or porcini is an indicator of my appetite level for GenAi summaries
As the warm sun glints on my campari and soda I imagine Emily Wilson and Christopher Nolan high-fiving and clinking glasses somewhere with big silly grins
