James Vincent

perfect, thank you google AI - those are indeed the limits of language

screenshot of a wikipedia page showing a picture of a woman with arms akimbo and the etymological description noted in the text of the post

stolen from x, but i always assumed "akimbo" was borrowed from Japanese or something, but it's a contraction of the middle english "in kene bowe" meaning "in a sharp bend." (and bow in this sense of a bend also gives us the bow of a ship, an archer's bow, a knot tied in a bow, a rainbow, etc — fun!)

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

the book itself is a beaut, too. not only do we get "Max Jammer" in an editorial role, but a foreword by old Einstein himself.

a lovely bookplate on this random PDF — cor ad, cor loquitur; "heart speaks to heart."

Oxford Street pedestrianisation plan gets final official approval City Hall hopes to stop traffic from using the street by September.

great news: www.bbc.com/news/article...

and a quick temperature check on x, the everything app:

there's just a million moving parts here, really. i've not even mentioned export controls, with anthropic's support for these winning favor with china hawks, or ted cruz, currently moving pro-regulation ahead of 2028 republican candidate nominations. it's all about AI policy!

and atm it does look like the WH is overstepping. e.g. sending that memo Utah's republican legislature opposing a bill on AI transparency and safety. state lawmakers thought they'd be free to legislate on this, and the child safety angle is very important with the republican base

it's costly signalling baby and the nerds loves it!!

it'll be really interesting to see how this plays out in the midterms. we now have two broad coalitions (to simplify: anthropic vs openai) putting money behind candidates based on their stance on AI regulation. if the anti-regulation lot lose, then Trump will look less favorably on his AI advisors

it also makes more sense to take a stand against an administration that is unpopular and chaotic, rather than one that's soaring in the polls and focused. the real damage may come from the AI cabal around the WH (sacks, andreessen, etc) who already despise anthropic and will use this to punish it

absolutely. hegseth hardly seems like the most fearsome opponent in this sense

who knows exactly why Amodei has done this — but it does genuinely seem to be a matter of principle to him. and, to be cynical, that's a very valuable asset when your rivals seem to have none. top AI talent seems as much motivated by mission as paycheck, and anthropic now stands alone on this

if Hegseth follows through on his threats, then Anthropic loses a $200m contract (not important in the scheme of things), but is designated a supply chain risk (potentially incredibly damaging to reputation/business, but could be legally challenged)

Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War A statement from our CEO on national security uses of AI

wow: anthropic are sticking by their guns — or, rather, not sticking by the Pengaton's. amodei says the company won't drop safeguards against using its AI to power fully autonomous weapons or mass surveillance, per DoD demands, and will take what punishment it gets www.anthropic.com/news/stateme...

apple, orange, banana: the trinity of fruit really

"It is likely that a major impact event separated the moon from the earth around 4.5 billion years ago, and it is shortly after this that we find the oldest evidence for life on our planet. One attractive reconstruction of the relevant events would have life arriving from elsewhere through a subsequent less destructive impact event — so-called panspermia theory. Another theory would have it that the newly formed dynamic system involving both the moon and the earth played a key role in the autocatalysis of organic compounds. Suddenly, with two gravitationally bound bodies in the picture, and with the tidal effects this produced on the one of the two bodies largely covered in ocean, we had in effect a natural equivalent to what in a biomedical laboratory is called an orbital shaker: you leave it on overnight, and it sloshes particles dissolved in liquid, and sometimes, if the proportions and temperature and speed are right, something begins to happen. No autocatalysis, again in short, without the rhythmic alternating sloshing of the tides, and no tides without the moon."

just a wonderful, wonderful piece of writing. "The Moon Makes Us Human" - www.the-hinternet.com/p/the-moon-m...

Easily one of the top charts of all time

This is fascinating science (and one of the many reasons I like Bluesky these days) about the first giant organism to live on the earth's land surface 400 million years ago: 25-foot-tall (!) pre-trees grown from "previously undescribed" organisms that are now completely extinct. What the hell!!

very kind of you to say and I'm glad it was useful! Would need a big update now but yes some things haven't changed...

historian of science Helge Kragh describes Lemaître's hypothesis as "more a piece of cosmic poetry than a scientific theory" — which is spot on imo. scientists hadn't even split the atom in 1931, and so Lemaître's description was more metaphorical than anything else. but it was conceptually correct

and from that follow-up: "The evolution of the world can be compared to a display of fireworks that has just ended: some few red wisps, ashes and smoke. Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanishing brilliance of the origin of the worlds."

the origins of the universe have always been inauspicious of course, but it's incredible to think that the entire modern cosmological theory of the Big Bag stems from a single letter, less than 500 words long. (Lemaĩtre would expand on it in November, introducing his "primeval atom" terminology)

another hit from the archives: the letter sent to Nature by Georges Lemaître in May 1931, outlining the theory that the universe came into existence from the explosion of a "primeval atom" — aka the Big Bang. it was sandwiched between letters on insect remains and molecular iodine analysis

though, ofc, we have a reality TV show host in the white house who appoints podcasters to head his security services. the worlds of "entertainment" and "politics" have never been more porous. i guess i'm just hoping that the goofy factor will undercut some of the possible darker influences for genZ

yeah, i think parts will definitely go that way, but there's aspects that seem more tied to entertainment as much as politics. the chad leaderboard and frat leader storylines, monetized via viral content. i think part of the audience enjoys it more as satire and parody than any sincere ideology

that's the whole ball game for these people!! to try and make "beauty" and "attraction" into entirely separate categories, rather than an overwhelming mess of contradictory impulses. and yes they're obviously misogynists, but i do genuinely think that more than that they seem scared and overwhelmed

this is great - @annieknk.bsky.social always so perceptive. there's a wonderful line that really opens up looksmaxxing, in which she paraphrases clavicular dismissing women — "you only think she's beautiful because you're attracted to her." bsky.app/profile/jare...

Can I just say that Londoncentric is proving to be the most important media outlet in London and a crucial part of the city's social and political fabric. I'm a subscriber and I always feel like it's a great investment