Ben Madeska

@benmadeska.bsky.social

Artist, Writer, Educator

Congratulations to Francis Halzen, founder of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, for receiving the Nobel Prize in physics. Halzen is recognised for his contributions to neutrino astrophysics, using the observatory at the South Pole that he proposed and led. ☄️🔭⚛️🧪 www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...

Nobel Prize in Physics 2026

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 was awarded to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”

nobelprize.org

George Saunders on using AI: "Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that?"

Have you spent time trying to write or revise with AI? Is there an experiment that would be interesting enough to try?

I have not. Not for a second. To me, this whole idea of using AI to write is . . . anathema. A thing to be most radically avoided.

Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that? Not even in an email and certainly not in a short story or novel.Who are we ceding our authority to, exactly, when we let AI write for us? And why? Why surrender our agency (that amazing ability we have to reach across time and space, with our strange, idiosyncratic phenomenon, and land within the sensibility of another human being) to something that, by its very design, pushes the individual sensibility aside? And in the name of . . . what, exactly? Ease, I guess? Efficiency? The person who chooses to write with AI has also sacrificed, from the start, the opportunity of experiencing difficulty, of struggling to say what he wants to say, of making himself evident in his prose, of trying to find out what he believes. By this, he sacrifices a chance to know himself and his mind better. To me, that’s a shame. And it’s dangerous, because, as we are now finding out, it affects the brain and lessens our capabilities. Thanks, but no thanks, get thee behind me, etc.

Unpaid volunteers are the backbone of institutions like these, and their work often goes unsung. So when a governing body, for instance, lets go of a museum's volunteer coordinator in the dead of night, that tells you they might not, in fact, have said museum's best interests in mind.

A many-windowed terracotta building that I will not name here

NBC News' Claudio Lavanga asked Pope Leo if he had anything to do with Chicago White Sox 'miraculous' historic ride to the playoffs during the pope's flight to Paris.

A long-awaited title is finally available for preorder! As usual, a wide variety of info on display: neighborhoods that have survived the most foreclosures, where to grab a Chicago dog, or where peregrine falcons have been spotted. I’d love to hear guesses/predictions for what else made it in!

Chicago in 50 Maps

By Daniel Block & Andrea Craft April 6, 2027 This is a pre-order. Copies will ship in April 2027. Creative, colorful, original new maps of Chicago from local cartographers. For Chicagoans new and ...

tinyurl.com

To anyone who does not live in Paris but visits the city at regular intervals (as I do), the transformation has been staggering: Paris has been reclaimed from cars. It can be done, and could be done in London too. It is all about political will and taking the risk of being unpopular - for a while.

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 2mo ago

“Paris has embarked on a grand transformation, planting 155k trees, adding hundreds of kms of bike lanes, pedestrianising 300 school streets and banning cars from the banks of the Seine. Parking has been turned into green space…Fewer parents fear their child being run over when they walk to school.”

Our son likes Legos so we've put together many many sets over the years. Inevitably I get to the point with one or another where I think there was a mistake: they forgot a piece or missed a step in the directions. And just as inevitably I realize the error was mine. Their quality control is insane.