Elon Musk and other internet racists started an internet war over Christopher Nolan’s casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, thereby immediately disproving their point.
Quoting Brandon Sanderson
This is the difference between Data and a large language model, at least the ones operating right now. Data created art because he wanted to grow. He wanted to become something. He wanted to understand. Art is the means by which we become what we want to be. [...]
The book,...
Early this month, a wily coyote swam across San Francisco...
Early this month, a wily coyote swam across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz. He was in such rough shape, observers thought he’d probably die, but he’s been snacking on birds and rodents and was recently observed fat as a pickle.
Seu Jorge’s Lovely Tribute to David Bowie
For his 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wes Anderson enlisted Brazilian musical artist Seu Jorge to perform several of David Bowie’s songs in Portuguese. Jorge released an album of the songs about a year or so later.
A few weeks ago, to mark the 10th anniversary of Bowie’s death, Jorge released a hour-long set of him performing those songs:
Tags: movies · music · Seu Jorge · The Life Aquatic · video · Wes Anderson
The Accidental Winners of the War on Higher Ed ....
The Accidental Winners of the War on Higher Ed. “Well-resourced and prestigious small colleges are less exposed in almost every way to the crises that higher ed faces.” (My kid goes to a liberal arts school & anecdotally can confirm.)
Significant Find of Cambrian Explosion Fossils
A recent paper in Nature details what scientists found at the Huayuan biota:
Here we report the Huayuan biota — a lower Cambrian (Stage 4, approximately 512 million years ago) BST Lagerstätte from an outer shelf, deep-water setting of the Yangtze Block in Hunan, South Chi...
Culinary Students Given Live Baby To Learn How To Care...
Culinary Students Given Live Baby To Learn How To Care For Bag Of Flour. I laughed so hard at this.
Introducing the Codex app
Introducing the Codex app
OpenAI just released a new macOS app for their Codex coding agent. I've had a few days of preview access - it's a solid app that provides a nice UI over the capabilities of the Codex CLI agent and adds some interesting new features, most notably fir...
Volleyball Player Does Sliding Dogeza Apology
During an exhibition, Japanese volleyball player Yuji Nishida hit a courtside judge in the back with an errant serve. He immediately sprinted across the court and dove prostrate in apology. The gesture was a sort of sliding dogeza:
Even in a country where a sincere apolo...
As part of their coursework, students at UC Berkeley are...
As part of their coursework, students at UC Berkeley are contributing edits to Wikipedia about “LGBTQ+ history, with an emphasis on queer and trans people of color”. They’ve added 300,000+ edits and 3,000+ citations.
02.02.2026
The Schoolchildren of Minneapolis . “As thousands...
The Schoolchildren of Minneapolis. “As thousands of ICE agents arrived, kids started staying home from school. A local principal, teachers, and parent volunteers have banded together to keep the families safe.”
Autocratic backfire : when dictators construct echo...
Autocratic backfire: when dictators construct echo chambers, overestimate their abilities, and dismiss their adversaries’ capabilities, leading to weakening or ruin. Examples: Mussolini, Putin, and now (hopefully) Trump.
A Social Network for A.I. Bots Only. No Humans Allowed.
A Social Network for A.I. Bots Only. No Humans Allowed.
I talked to Cade Metz for this New York Times piece on OpenClaw and Moltbook. Cade reached out after seeing my blog post about that from the other day.
In a first for me, they decided to send a photographer, Jason Henry...
Darren Aronofsky’s AI Studio Used Artificial...
Darren Aronofsky’s AI Studio Used Artificial Intelligence Tools for Revolutionary War Animated Series. Interesting use of “animated” to mean “AI-generated photorealism”. I watched the trailer…everything looks vaguely plastic.
Israel opens Rafah border crossing
The reopening of the Rafah crossing is a key part of President Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza, but only about 50 Palestinians are being allowed to cross in each direction, each day. Also: Pakistan begins a nation-wide anti-polio campaign to vaccinate more than 45 million ch...
Groundhog Day Meaning
Do you know about the original vampire ending for Marty...
Do you know about the original vampire ending for Marty Supreme? (You heard me.)
Tim Burton on Catherine O’Hara :...
Tim Burton on Catherine O’Hara: “Catherine’s so good, maybe too good. She works on levels that people don’t even know. I think she scares people because she operates at such high levels.” Loved her. RIP.
Features | The Verge
• Victoria Song
The tragedy of Supernatural
When you picture a virtual reality headset user, you're probably not picturing someone like Sherry Dickson. At 69, the snowy-haired, retired elementary school teacher hops into her Meta Quest headset five days a week, for roughly 60 to 90 minutes at a time. She's not attending live concerts or watching immersive films. Dickson, a fitness […]