I am truly concerned that two writers I really like, T. Kingfisher and Robert Jackson Bennett, have been conspiring to make me not want anything to do with mushrooms.
Erin
@shiitake74.bsky.social
Topics I'm following and thinking about: US and German politics, renewable energy, education, authors, random Bluesky craziness. She/her. #fuckAfD, đłïžââ§ïžrights
Feeling seen as I go back to my custom PC server assembling roots. Anyone remember when a bootable Linux kernel fit on floppies?
lauren@lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 3d agocurrent feelings around AI: the CEOs shoveling slop into everything should be in jail but the guys spending upwards of $60,000 on elaborate, janky home rigs to run local models for no reason other than to see if it works are engaging in a long and semi-honorable tradition of computer toucher shit
Current political state in Germany: the federal government is developing backup plans on how to move NATO troops quickly if one or more of the eastern BundeslÀnder elects the right extremist AfD into power. Sachsen Anhalt may see the AfD as the ruling party as soon as this September.
Konflikte & Sicherheit@konflikt-sicher.bsky.social · 4d agoDie #Bundesregierung entwickelt NotfallplĂ€ne, um #NATO -Truppen auch bei fehlender Kooperation eines Bundeslandes rasch durch #Deutschland verlegen zu können. Hintergrund hierfĂŒr sind Sorgen vor Verzögerungen durch eine mögliche #AfD -Alleinregierung in Sachsen-Anhalt. www.welt.de/politik/ausl...
Some years ago a good friend asked me to paint a trompe lâĆil mouse hole at his cottage. I may have gotten carried away. Several more mouse metro stations planned, and possibly a Wuppertal-style monorail on a ceiling beamâŠ
OK I would like better writers and more plausible plots now, thank you for your attention.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5d agoHegseth: "The flyovers will indeed continue until morale improves"
There's lots of stuff LLMs can't do, but if you want to disbelieve all the recent math, you have to believe a bunch of Fields Medalists with long track records are just straightforwardly lying about the thing they care most about. Here's a recent blog by Gowers: gowers.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/a...
A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro
We are all having to keep revising upwards our assessments of the mathematical capabilities of large language models. I have just made a fairly large revision as a result of ChatGPT 5.5 Pro, to whiâŠ
gowers.wordpress.com
Overnight, a masked bandit broke into our kitchen. Armed with opposable thumbs, he proceeded to sample everything on offer. Iâd just visited the farmers market, so the menu was extensive. I can now share a highly specific peer-reviewed list of what this particular raider did & did not enjoy. đ§”
Raccoon's Evil Smile: 'Good, Good'
Alt: Raccoon's Evil Smile: 'Good, Good'
static.klipy.com
Terence Tao, possibly the greatest living mathematician, has looked into the work of AI in producing a counter example to a famous previously unsolved conjecture, and found it worth digesting and explaining. His blog post also includes his own dialogue with ChatGPT about it.
A digestion of the Jacobian conjecture counterexample
The notorious Jacobian conjecture can be formulated concretely over the complex numbers as follows. Conjecture 1 (Jacobian Conjecture) Let $latex {F:{\bf C}^n \rightarrow {\bf C}^n}&fg=000000$ âŠ
terrytao.wordpress.com
Hilarious, to my former math student self. Also: kind of illustrates why in math brute force solutions to proofs are considered less elegant than logical ones.
post malone ergo propter malone@proptermalone.bsky.social · 2w agothereâs a surprisingly large amount of LLM emotional support that goes into frontier math
The report is well worth reading, if you have any interest in what has led to the current state of dramatic collapse in the German car industry. No, it's not just China being (whatever), or the high cost of energy and labor in Germany.
Benjamin Braun@benbraun.eurosky.social · 2w agoExceptionally illuminating @adamtooze.bsky.social today. The chart, from a 2025 @somoamsterdam.bsky.social report, says it all: European carmakers went on a sellers' inflation binge at the worst possible moment (i.e., the moment Chinese competitors geared up to lower prices and take market share).
US looks increasingly like a captured petro island in the world economy: "You wouldn't know it if you live in the USA or consume US media and politics, but the fight between EVs & ICEs is basically over...ALL the growth globally is in EVs" Polycrisis Podcast open.spotify.com/show/78cVf8D...
Yes, and then we all went to protests and the AfD ratings went down, but then we got the current coalition and the AfD is polling better than ever. What, me bitter?
Natascha Strobl@nataschastrobl.bsky.social · 2mo agoKönnt ihr euch erinnern, dass es in Deutschland ein Skandal war, dass die AfD auf der "Remigrations"-Konferenz war. Immer, wenn ich dort bin erklÀrt man mir, d die AfD die schlimmste der rechtsextremen Parteien sei. Nun, die FPà hat einen eigenen "Remigrationssong" und es ist nichtmal ein Skandal.
Europe has already cut its energy bill by 29% but nobody talks about it. EU energy use in 2024: 854 Mtoe. Without efficiency gains since 2000 it would have been ~1,103 Mtoe. That's energy nobody had to generate, import or pay for. New policy brief out today đ www.janrosenow.com/uploads/4/7/...
Found this interesting but possibly misleading because it's only reporting on private VC funding. Did a little own research, and graphed as absolute values and as % of GDP: absolute values, log scale because US and China are so far ahead:
Semafor@semafor.com · 2mo agoThe sudden move sparked alarm among Western allies: The EU said the decision underlined the blocâs need for âtechnological sovereignty,â while Canadaâs leader argued it showcased the risk of relying on a small cluster of powerful US tech firms.
Guardian should ask mathematicians to rank the best 100 numbers. This idea occurred to me as a piss take but it could potentially be good.
Pretty decent projected election results from Baden WĂŒttenberg today: Greens leading with 32%, FDP (liberals) not clearing the 5% minimum hurdle. Comfortable margins for a Green-CDU coalition. www.reuters.com/world/german...
German Greens lead Chancellor Merz's conservatives in state election
Germany's environmental Greens are set to win a state election in the southern region of Baden-Wuerttemberg, leaving them poised to continue a âcoalition with Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives...
reuters.com
if you believe in any form of free enterprise at all, the idea that the Pentagon can not only cut off your contract but designate you a supply chain risk and prevent other companies from buying from you just because you won't build killbots for the government should be terrifying
Trumps Zoll-Drohungen zeigen: Die von der Leyen-Zusage fĂŒr 750 Mrd. Dollar zusĂ€tzlich fossile Energie in den USA zu kaufen, war ein irrer Fehler. Eine weitere Erpressbarkeit ist entstanden. Wir mĂŒssen uns von fossilem Gas & Ăl befreien. WĂ€rmepumpe und grĂŒnen Wasserstoff verbreiten statt ausbremsen!
A buddy in MN shared a drawing a classmate of his kid made. They've been making thank you notes for parents who have volunteered to carpool them to school so their own parents don't have to risk waiting out by the bus stop.
Not sure that Matty deserved this serious of a factual takedown but nevertheless. Intelligent and thorough analysis of what he got wrong, about energy and politics thereof.
Sean Casten@seancasten.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...
Good essay and analysis. Unfortunately I think to get anywhere with this, one would need EU-wide financial reform for the success of projects across Europe, and the current perspectives on industrial competition are still far too national. In the auto sector for example, with France and Germany.
Daniel Driscoll@danieldrisc.com · 8mo agoBest essay I've read in a while. "Europe does not need to become China to learn from China. What it needs is to rediscover something it once knew how to do: coordinate...connective institutions that bind labs to lenders, regulators to builders, engineers to investors." substack.com/home/post/p-...
The extreme attack on transgender youth we are witnessing from a governmental stage was enabled by The Atlantic and The New York Times.
This is really the key. Dispatchable solar (meaning: generated and stored to be used when and where it is needed) becomes affordable. We don't have the solution yet for long term storage (summer to winter) but we can do it now for day/night. However, adds to demand on grid infrastructure.
Jonathan Overpeck@greatlakespecktwo.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis is incredible (good news too): âAfter a 40% fall in 2024 in battery equipment costs, itâs clear weâre on track for another major fall in 2025âŠThe economics for batteries are unrecognizable, & the industry is only just getting to grips with this new paradigmâ www.pv-magazine.com/2025/12/12/b...
Energie, Digitalisierung, MobilitĂ€tâDeutschland steckt tief in einer Transformationskrise. Wer wissen wollte wie tief, sah gestern Merz den Vorgestrigen ĂŒber die Zukunft Deutschlands reden. Mit diesem Kanzler hat Deutschland unter den Technologienationen bestenfalls eine Zukunft als Industriemuseum.
Also this is SO CHEAP compared to other investment based immigration paths to first world countries. The closest one in Quebec has all kinds of extra requirements (French skills, education, etc.) and doesn't lead directly to citizenship. I'm kind of offended by the bargain price!
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 8mo agoThis is still VERY illegal. The Trump admin says anyone who pays $1 million will be deemed to have "exceptional business ability" and become eligible for an employment-based immigrant visa. But there's nothing stopping someone from just getting a loan or using parents' money.