Here's “Animals”, the first track from the second album by @SebastopolBand, in which I play drums youtube.com/watch?v=PRYbVLPN…

Um, those are all elements, not minerals, and none of them is a rare-earth element nytimes.com/2025/02/03/world…

Toad sat on the edge of his bed. ’Blah,’ said Toad. ‘I feel down in the dumps.’

Things blamed on radio (From 1920s to 1940s) - Bad economy - Poor grades - Robbery - Dead birds - Dirigible explosions - Broken windows - Fights - Rain - Snow - Drought - Gun deaths - Bad skin - Jail breaks - Unemployment of blind - Blue, green and pink water

New paper: “Lessons for scaling direct air capture from the history of ammonia synthesis.” Led by Cameron Roberts.   TLDR: If high temperature DAC can grow like ammonia it can meet 2050 targets, but…   1/x

Right now the advantages from AI accrue to workers, not firms. As a result, they can be hard to notice (especially if you don't try to seriously use AI yourself, which is illuminating) These two accounts by coders are instructive: nicholas.carlini.com/writing… erikschluntz.com/software/20…

Who remembers this moment in Prince of Persia (1989) where a magic mirror suddenly blocks the hero's path (and what happens afterward)? This moment was actually never planned to be in the game. My original vision was a game with lots of traps, but NO enemies... (1/10)

🎉 Congratulations to Georgia Mae Ayling for winning the Rising Star Award! 🏆     @GeorgiaMAyling #GameDevHeroes #GDH2024    🧵(1/4)

This is amazing, on all levels!

I've finished my ZX Spectrum 48k inspired album of 80s music, so if you've had the exact same childhood as me at the same time as me then you might like this. open.spotify.com/album/1rZiA…

I was just named Data Journalist of the Year! I won the award for what the judges called "pioneering" work using satellites to cover war. Huge thanks go my colleagues at @TheEconomist who make my work possible. More here thepressawards.com/results-2…

My "Nerd Urban Dictionary" list of fancy words nerds use to prove how smart they are now has more than 200 entries! I'll bet you're guilty of a few of them (I know I am) andersonchris.medium.com/the…

Yesterday I learned the expression “countermeasure holiday” from @shashj but this is even crazier

Ten months ago, we launched the Vesuvius Challenge to solve the ancient problem of the Herculaneum Papyri, a library of scrolls that were flash-fried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Today we are overjoyed to announce that our crazy project has succeeded. After 2000 years, we can finally read the scrolls: This image was produced by @Youssef_M_Nader, @LukeFarritor, and @JuliSchillij, who have now won the Vesuvius Challenge Grand Prize of $700,000. Congratulations!! These fifteen columns come from the very end of the first scroll we have been able to read and contain new text from the ancient world that has never been seen before. The author – probably Epicurean philosopher Philodemus – writes here about music, food, and how to enjoy life's pleasures. In the closing section, he throws shade at unnamed ideological adversaries – perhaps the stoics? – who "have nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or in particular." This year, the Vesuvius Challenge continues. The text that we revealed so far represents just 5% of one scroll. In 2024, our goal is to from reading a few passages of text to entire scrolls, and we're announcing a new $100,000 grand prize for the first team that is able to read at least 90% of all four scrolls that we have scanned. The scrolls stored in Naples that remain to be read represent more than 16 megabytes of ancient text. But the villa where the scrolls were found was only partially excavated, and scholars tell us that there may be thousands more scrolls underground. Our hope is that the success of the Vesuvius Challenge catalyzes the excavation of the villa, that the main library is discovered, and that whatever we find there rewrites history and inspires all of us. It's been a great joy to work on this strange and amazing project. Thanks to Brent Seales for laying the foundation for this work over so many years, thanks to the friends and Twitter users whose donations powered our effort, and thanks to the many contestants whose contributions have made the Vesuvius Challenge successful! Read more in our announcement: scrollprize.org/grandprize

The claims of AI pitchmen repeatedly turn out to be blatant lies. This has been the case since at least the 18th C.'s Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing automaton (actually a chess player crammed into the base of an puppet that was exhibited as an intelligent robot). 5/

Never mind the em-dashes — this is a dangling modifier! A much worse crime!

Seeing some qs on what Gemini *is* (beyond the zodiac :). Best way to understand Gemini’s underlying amazing capabilities is to see them in action, take a look ⬇️

bard is running on a new model called gemini pro. it's pretty good! try it now: g.co/bard/share/82c1bbd9a0fd

Differences between a seagull and a crow: promptness, timeliness, precision, and focus

With the OpenAI clownshow, there's been renewed media attention on the xrisk/"AI safety" nonsense. Personally, I've had a fresh wave of reporters asking me naive questions ( some contacts from old hands who know how to handle ultra-rich man-children with god complexes). 🧵1/