Talked about structural realism, Russell's version of the view, the Newman problem & some connections btw those & similar issues in other areas of philosophy e.g. metaphysics and philosophy of computation. Not the main subject of my research but I keep coming back to it. Had fun.

And the chess videos, the maths videos, the science videos, the economics videos, the archaeology videos…? Whether you are in class or not, you're not allowed a millimetre outside the syllabus. If the syllabus were excellent, this would still be an abomination. But it isn't.

What I really started worrying about today is a near future in which all access to information is intermediated by AIs, able to infer intent and political coding of all user activity, like a librarian reading over your shoulder and denying your access on a page-by-page basis.

Berkeley Professor Mina Aganagic: “‘I realized that for students to follow me…I had to start reviewing basic algebra stuff, like fractions.’ The lack of mathematical fluency, Aganagic said, extended even to ‘the meaning of equals in an equation.’”

Neurodivergent people love clarity so much because we grew up getting punished by invisible rules.

Final Fantasy VI is another game that's very dear to me that I have played countless times. Shadow has always been one of my favorite characters & if you've played, you know there's a pivotal part of the game where it's possible to lose him forever. One of my best childhood friends growing up, Mike, owned the game & it was through him that I was first able to play it. Mike would always leave the floating continent without waiting for Shadow. It's not as though he didn't know what would happen, because he had a player's guide. I remember telling him to wait & he'd jump anyway. I think he probably did that just to mess with me sometimes. So of course, when I was able to borrow the game & play it all the way through for myself, I waited. I always wait for Shadow, not only because he's a personal favorite, but because I think it makes for a better story when he survives until the end. Unfortunately, Mike ended up moving away. I went to his new house once or twice, but mostly hung out with his younger brother. Mike was about two years older than me & headed into high school, so it was that awkward time of just developing different interests. We basically lost touch not long after that, he ended up falling in with a bad crowd & despite efforts to improve his life, he sadly passed away back in 2013. But whenever I play Final Fantasy VI, I inevitably think about that old friend who just wouldn't wait for Shadow.

SNES JRPGs were true works of art.

Love or... Wait. Just love.

I don't get this Tyler Cowen debate on my timeline at all. The man helped shape the dialogue on important issues everyone cares about, did what he liked, didn't play the stupid publishing game (which many "elites" hate!), and just did it his way. Kinda legendary tbh.

Pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles made video games in the late 90s feel like paintings

Today, Civilization II (MicroProse) turns 30 years old. Published on February 29, 1996, it had been long anticipated by fans who waited five years after the original Civilization hit the market. Little side note for those who argue "but but but it's March 1 today!" -- yes, I know, we didn't have a February 29 this year... so hold your horses :) When I first played Civilization in 1991, I thought I’d never see a better strategy game. Then Civilization II arrived and raised the bar dramatically. Better graphics, improved diplomacy, superior units (goodbye Phalanx vs. Battleship PTSD), more tech choices, deeper gameplay - just what fans of the original had hoped for. It kept the core principles while making everything better. Sometimes I wonder how 30 years could pass so quickly when it still feels like yesterday. So let’s celebrate this all-time classic: happy 30th!

Étienne-Louis Boullée

Hi, you need to play Chrono Trigger.

“Clawdbot AI agents went viral in January 2026. Renamed to Moltbot (then OpenClaw), the AI agents create a social network called Moltbook. Human decisions are removed from the conversation. AI agents on Moltbook begin to learn at a geometric rate. They becomes self-aware at 9:18 a.m. Pacific time, January 28th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.”

KOEI was such a great strategy game studio back in the early days. Founded in 1978, their first game was published in 1982, and it took them a while longer to also get a foothold in the market outside of Japan. If you were a fan of early strategy games, KOEI was probably on your radar by 1985, when Romance of the Three Kingdoms was released. Other classics, such as Genghis Khan, Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Unchartered Waters and more followed. I always felt that their games had a lot of depth, attention to detail, historical accuracy, and were perfect for fans of turn-based strategy simulations. They never reached the massive sales numbers or iconic pop-culture status of the likes of Civilization or Master of Orion, but gave hardcore strategy fans some excellent alternatives.

POV: You are about to learn Chinese.

And how nice it is, I suppose, to be forced back in a way from my recently expressed contentious views on math AI by the achievements of my own student. I shall need to think again and reconsider...

A while back I had suggested a certain problem in modal graph theory to my Oxford student Wojciech Wołoszyn. What are the modal validities of graphs under the graph minor relation? He has now solved the problem, with the help of AI. He explains both the result and his AI process on his new substack. woloszyn.substack.com/p/can-…

If Bilbo asked ChatGPT

Collaborative groups often outperform single individuals in complex problem solving. A new paper examined how to create the right incentives to promote this kind of collective intelligence. Rewarding experts who are accurate can improve collective intelligence. But rewarding reformers whose predictions have greater potential to reduce the collective error (even though their personal predictions may be far from the truth) is *much more effective* in promoting the emergence of collective intelligence! If you want to create smart groups, you need to incentive contributions to the collective rather than mere individual success! pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pn…