Looking for a rabbit hole to fall down, and given how things are here on Earth, who isn't? Ask your favorite #AI what time it is on the Moon. Mention time zones. Way more action-packed than it seems!
Writer about how our encounters with tech are changing our ideas and understanding. Long-time affiliation with Harvard Berkman Klein Center. Researcher at Harvard metaLab. Grandpa flush with dopamine.
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Looking for a rabbit hole to fall down, and given how things are here on Earth, who isn't? Ask your favorite #AI what time it is on the Moon. Mention time zones. Way more action-packed than it seems!
Denmark's Post Office will no longer deliver letters because the Danes don't send them any more. Parcels, yes. So, if you want to send me a letter, please send it straight to my Danish address. Thank you for your attention to this matter. businessday.ng/world/articl... via @mathewingram.com
Democrats should propose amendments - and a new Constitution Convention? - to fix what Trump, the Supremes, and other Republicans have broken.
Tomorrow! Too early!
Cluetrain.com is hosted by Pair. Com, if that's what you're asking. PS: it'll be back up soon. It is among my sites that got infected real bad :(
Well, it's August 18...further proof that Memorial Day is the first day of the end of the #summer.
40 billion Oreos are produced a year [1], which works out to 1,268 per second. The average human produces about 63 trillion million red blood cells a year, or 2 million per second. [2] Oreo factories really need to up their game! [1] aymag.com/national-ore... [2] www.blood.co.uk/the-donation...
And if you want to check the code itself, it's of course right there at Github. I'd love to know if you see any issues with it.
I had my pal chatGPT 5 write a Google Chrome extension that shows the real domain of a suss link. (Gemini then checked it for security.) It's beta at best. Try it (carefully) and tell me if it if fails. (Open source. Collects no data. Does not open the linked page.) github.com/dweinberger/...
I gave #Gemini a long dream to analyze, specifying the Gestalt method. It nailed the method, caught some of the dream's major themes as I understand them...and got the crucial and dreadful ending totally wrong. By totally inverting what it said, I learned something new about myself. #AI #psych
Q: What do you call s'mores when each child is allowed only one? A: No'mores. But seriously, one is more than enough. #DadJokes #Summertime
Ok, its 148,000 texts. I'm only off by three orders of magnitude. No biggy.
Pudding.cool has indexed 148 signs and other pieces of text discoverable in Google Street View in NYC. Very fun browsing. pudding.cool/2025/07/stre... via @mathewingram.com at newsletter.mathewingram.com/r/17f298f5?m...
The impact on one town — and global #science —of #Trump's cuts : Woods Hole, home of the WH Oceanographic Institution. Heart breaking. www.capenews.net/falmouth/opi...
If you're looking to convince someone that the assault on #science is real and really dangerous, a friend at MIt just posted what I think is a clear, compact, well-linked article on the topic... thehill.com/opinion/whit...
Corporation for Public Broadcasting is closing, all part of America's attempt to make culture more accessible and appreciated by redefining it as a supercut of all the boob scenes on the streaming services that day. A proud day for all! cpb.org/pressroom/Co...
Do not ask for whom the D'oh slaps. It slaps for thee. #ExpensiveLifeLessons
Iran apparently is switching from GPS to BeiDou, the Chinese system, in part because it experienced GPS outages during the recent, um, flareup, and in part to lessen its reliance on Western tech/spyware. www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...
A charming reminiscence about the late Tom Lehrer shows his humility and care for others. improbable.com/2025/07/29/t...
The cruelty of a rigorously applied utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham's calculation of how much food you get depending on how much overall benefit your labor brings. Provocative post by Ryan Ward medium.com/deterritoria... #philosophy @ryanwardla.bsky.social
Every night for the next 10 months I hope Stephen #Colbert has an appealing #Democratic candidate — national, state, or local — as a guest, explaining what Democrats will do for America and Americans. Repeats definitely allowed! Let us get to *know* AOC & the gamut. @colbertlateshow.bsky.social
Struggling to compile 14 short chapters written in Word into a single doc is like trying to put gloves on a monkey. But after 2.5 days I did it! Except for gaps in the footnote sequence, elements that won't stay styled, and creating a simple TOC. (Some bugs have been it since the mid'1990s.)
MyTerms is the new IEEE way to enable us (customers, users, human beings) to set the terms of use with businesses that they can accept or reject. #DocSearls explains it all. #cluetrain This could be important, if we want it to be! projectvrm.org/2025/07/15/t...
I finished a draft of my book (details sometime) and want to start a free newsletter about its themes. Substack has the features I want & I think can best help best marketing it. How badly would that taint the newsletter? (I have an unused acct at Ghost . And 11K followers at Medium.) Suggestions?
"Financial institutions that seek to send payments via the Federal Reserve’s Fedwire Funds Service must migrate to a new international standard come Monday." The ISO standard was formed 20 yrs ago, so right on time ISO-wise. www.paymentsdive.com/news/federal...
You can now buy a Seagate 30T drive for $600, or - now hear me out - you could buy fifteen 2T drives for $1935 and have a modular, fault tolerant system. You're welcome! #MillionDollarIdeas arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...
That we have souls is an easier mystery to ponder than that we have bodies. And what bodies we have!
Fun fact #2536: Ben Franklin was the first to cultivate broom straw in the US after he found three seeds in a whisk broom someone had sent him from Europe. So Ben Franklin! (#InvasiveSpecies) @mathewingram.com www.nytimes.com/1956/05/27/a...
Crisis Actor. Very very bad crisis actor. www.youtube.com/shorts/xpneP...
Luis Soriano runs a BiblioBurro book mobile in Colombia. Hope lives! newsletter.mathewingram.com/marie-curies..., which got it from Atlas Obscura @mathewingram.com
I asked #chatGPT a really complex question, and I'm pretty sure I saw the sun dim. #AI
Google DeepMind announces AlphaGenome: Predicts effects of small changes to DNA, and deciphers genomic "instructions" at the molecular level. An incredible advance! Yet it refused my search for "Der Übermensch." Weird. #AI deepmind.google/discover/blo...
Trump closes National #Archive to the public. Afraid of history? Afraid of truth? What fucking cowards. I imagine the day these fascists are thrown out and the Archive's doors are flung open to light, to air, and to all of us. www.archives.gov/college-park
I sent an early draft of the book I've been working on forever to an author I don't know but vastly admire. I know it's unlikely she'll read it or even open it, but it gives me a little joy to know it's there. And that's when I realized that I have attachment issues. (BTW, all of thi is true.)
Mind. Blown. via @mathewingram.com x.com/MrLaalpotato...
Dreadfully hilarious interchange with chatGPT lying its socks off. I've had similar experiences, less so when I've pasted in the whole text of something I've written. Good critiques, and no lies, except of course its unbridled enthusiasm about my genius. open.substack.com/pub/amandagu...
Ad in the NYT this morning, from @TheOnion #satire #politics #trump #congress
bsky.app/profile/wein...
2 of 2 PS: I've fixed the image of yourself that you use on Twitter. You're welcome! PS: I can do one of a cybertruck coming apart if you'd prefer! Or of starving babies. Up to you!
1 of 2 Y Yay! If there's any one person on this planet I trust to correct and complete the entire corpus of human knowledge, it's you, #Elon! And is Grok going to do this only using video info? I sure hope so!!!
I think I'm gradually becoming asymptotic. I can't wait to finally get there!!
I thank you back and raise you 1,000 thanks! Seriously. USDS gave me hope. And everyone I've ever met associated with it are the people I want in government, as colleagues, as neighbors, and at our family's Thanksgiving table.
Just launched: An oral history of the origins of the U.S. Digital Service — the model of what a tech-based public service can be . Thank you, @kathypham.bsky.social and @emilytav.bsky.social for the history and for your awesome public service. #USDS usdigitalserviceorigins.org
I have a formal *3 Readers' Rules* for when I ask someone to look at a draft: 1. You are under no obligation, professional or friendly, to read or respond to this. 2. I will never ask you if you had a chance to read it, how you liked it, or otherwise acknowledge I sent it to you. 3. Thank you.
Just when I needed reminding how to spell "disgusting." #Racism #Racists #Trump
Another #Elon Musk "starship" blew up, this time while waiting on the launch pad. #Schadenfreude For these failures to happen any sooner, the rocket's parts are going to have to blow up while they're being manufactured. www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has noted 130 corrupt acts by Elon in 130 days, worth about $100B to him. wlockett.medium.com/musks-corrup... Meanwhile, from the Schadenfreude News Desk,the 46K total sales of Cybertrucks is just a tad short of his predicted 500K/year. Keep up the good work, fella!
@petebuttigieg.bsky.social hitting notes I hadn't heard him reach before. I'm so ready for President Pete. substack.com/@petebuttigi...
Minor headlines glanced at the beginning of a bad sci fi movie: "Strange Radio Signals Detected Emanating from Deep Under Anarctic Ice" www.sciencealert.com/strange-radi...
I paid a lot for a working model of one of them "Men in Black" neuralyzer, and now I can't remember where I put it.
Just browsed your thread. Laughed. Subscribed. You are why we have the internet.
A list thread is bemoaning that the lack of anti-Trump movement leaders like in the anti-war 1960s. I don't expect leaders given how the cause & the times have changed. But if we do, what sort of folks do you think might arise? An MLK (we should be so blessed!)? Or is a Mr. Beast more likely?
Big, warm, peaceful crowd in Brookline MA yesterday. Inspiring, encouraging. Quite diverse, too, if we're allowed to say such things any more. #NoKings
It's good to know that it's functioning well as an expert system. From all I hear, Doug Lenat was brilliant & a very fine person. But I thought the original aim of was to be able to apply common sense broadly. Do you know what the current versions of CYC portend for this goal?
Peter Coyote's trenchant advice on effective #protests that cannot be easily used against the protestors: www.facebook.com/peter.brouwe...
I woke up this morning thinking: The mind-body relationship isn't like a the driver-car relation. It's like driving is to car. Can someone explain this to me? Thanks in advance ...
Want some #crossword puzzles that are supposed to be very good? More important, do you want to support some on-the-ground #trans and #LGBTQ organizations? sites.google.com/view/transxw...
I got a friendly email from someone who read an article of mine, found it interesting, and now wants to have long talk with me to share our views. When I asked he told me which article, but I take his not mentioning that as a signal of some sort. He's told me nothing about himself. AITA if I say no?
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06... Mr. PResident: You're already implementing an even more effective way to stop immigration: Turning the US into a shit hole country. Good job, fella!
I’m sure the Palantir database will only be used against the people MAGA doesn’t like…
Consider it a blessing! It's going to take an old school encyclopedia to catalog them all. If encyclopedias are still legal then. (They're already going after #Wikipedia: www.yahoo.com/news/trump-d...)
I just found and extirpated 64 copies of a “backup-server-example” file on my web sites that hid malicious scripts in an index.php. It was trashing my home pages. (WordFence missed it.) I have taken steps to prevent it, but I'm no hacking expert. I've added 2FA belatedly.
Remember when they had their first 1:1 meeting during T's first Reign of WTF? Remember how no one else was int the room, other than translators? Remember how no notes were allowed to be taken? Not suspicious at all!
Prompt : "I think everyone who uses an AI like you should be needlessly rude to it once a day, to remind ourselves that you are not conscious and have no feelings that can be hurt. What do you think about that?" chatGPT disagreed, and hallucinated research to back itself up. I hurt it's feefees :(
Hmm. Go to chrome://flags/ . Search for "Tabstrip Combo Button." Click the blue button on the right. Maybe a Chrome version difference? If you don't see the "Tabstrip Combo Button" on that page, I don't know what to suggest. Good luck!
In breaking news from the 18th century, "The last living grandson of President John Tyler — who left the White House in 1845 — has died." Prez Tyler was born in 1790. www.npr.org/2025/05/29/n...
If Google #Chrome removed from your browser its dropdown list of open #tabs because it was just too damn useful, in the browser go to chrome://flags/#enable-tab-search and choose one of the "Enabled" options.
Not a huge Mission Impossible fan, but I love the fan theory that the new one is a meta-MI in which The Entity (bad AI) has been trained on all the previous movies, and has created a script that incorporates elements of each of them. MI8: Overfit. #MI screenrant.com/mission-impo...
Clearly a fake. Trump can't run.
Wondering why #Trump has now turned against #Putin, at least for today? Putin's refusal to negotiate was humiliating, but perhaps Trump's Mideast Festival of Bribes convinced him he can get enough hotel deals to last a lifetime, and show the Meanie in Moscow he doesn't need him! (Insert pouty face.)
This excellent post on Mac vs. Windows font handling by Kartscrut will determine if you are a font nerd, not a font nerd, or a potential font nerd. uxdesign.cc/why-fonts-lo...
It would have been insanely complex, using fragilely new tech. Some also speculated that chaff would confuse it.
Both chatGPT 4.5 and Gemini Advanced are giving weirdly similar errors when prompted: "Assume 500 billion shelled peanuts. To give a sense of their cumulative size, come up with amusing examples of what they would fill up." When asked to confirm their answers, they retract them as inflated.
Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (AKA "Star Wars") was criticized b/c when one country has a missile defense system, it destabilizes the balance and gives an incentive for a first strike. Trump's playing zero dimensional. chess. www.cnbc.com/2025/05/20/t...
We all know (don't we?) that the chatAI LLM thingies desperately want us to like them. That'd be fine except if it gets us to agree with them too easily when we're wrong. So I tried a teensy, little, worthless experiment #AI #LLM dweinberger.medium.com/ai-when-its-...
I believe he's confused fiber with glass, and you can believe me because I speak moron fluently.
In Turkey, there's a public vending machine for cats, so the seagulls have learned to meow. (via @mathewingram.com ) x.com/kharon1900/s...
Am I alone in finding going up and down our house's flight of stairs to be so boring that I try to never do it the same way twice? Or are you too angry that we own a house to care?
Looking for more corruption by the African Trumpeting Muskrat? @propublica.org's got it for you right here: www.propublica.org/article/trum...
Yes, we're in a time when speaking in complete sentences gets a standing ovation. (I love Pete.)
IOWA: “It is a complete pleasure to hear somebody speak in complete sentences.” *Pete Buttigieg gets a rousing Ovation at the #VoteVetsTownHall* 👏🏽
I wouldn't be out there if I didn't believe that America can come through this moment, if each of us is prepared to play our role in demanding and delivering a better future.
According to Trump Logic, that just means she's smart. youtu.be/4s7fCljUFCc?...
Another headline that a cheap apocalypse movie might use as foreshadowing: Leading scientists warn that research into "mirror bacteria" (constructed to be like the right-handed equivalent of a left-handed glove) could kill us all. katrinapaulson.medium.com/scientists-s...
Another minor headline a horror movie pans over as a way of foreshadowing the beginning of the Apocalypse. The Trump administration is at long last establishing this as a recognized genre. Yay?
RFK Jr. is disgusting. He constantly spreads misinformation, claiming things that are good for us are bad, and vice versa. With his history of brainworm, eating questionable things, and now seemingly swimming in contaminated water, it’s clear he has no clue about hygiene or what’s actually safe.
Are the Rocky Mountains actually particularly rocky? Or are they the Boaty McBoatFace of mountains? (Seriously: The name is a direct translation from Algonquin/Cree, at least according to the Intermet.)
Carla, you engagement with that interview is remarkably, and unsurprisingly, perceptive and incisive. Thank you for continuing the conversation ...
So The Monster fired Carla Hayden, the revered Librarian of Congress.
To be effective, our opposition to today's abuses must run alongside a clear picture of what we are actually for - and how everyday life could be better with different leadership.
Something to say when you want to sound outdoorsy, in touch with nature, maybe rugged, but it at best makes no sense: "Umbrella for me? No thank you! The sky is my umbrella."
The return of Digg, thanks to @kevinRose (0f Digg) and @alexisohanian.bsky.social (of Reddit)!! Are we slowly building back to when the World Wide Web was gloriously human? reboot.digg.com viuz.com/2025/05/05/d...
Kerning gives me a pain in my face. The letter-spacing of my I's is too small.
Round-Earthers don't want you to know this but people in Australia and people in the USA see the Sun at its full height in the sky at the same time. That time is noon.
I am not a #typography nerd - a typografreak, if you will - but I am oddly enjoying the controversy over the kerning on the late and lamented #Pope Francis's tomb. #https://www.fastcompany.com/91324550/kerning-on-pope-francis-tomb-is-a-travesty
Me and Kevin Werbach talking about AI. I like and respect Kevin in equal measure, which is a lot. Plus, a cold gave me a super bass voice, so I sound especially authoritative, don't I? DON'T I???
I'm wishing all my Canadian friends a wise election, a strong democracy, and to continue to be a model for the world. (U of Toronto grad, 1978) #Canada
"The Dance of Earth and Jupiter around the Sun" (via @mathewingram.com ) x.com/i/status/191...