The other problem with all palmtops is, of course, that the keyboard is too small for your fingers. This is a tricky one. You can’t win. If the machine’s small enough to go in your pocket it’s too small to type on. Well, I’ve found the answer. Forgive me if you knew this already, perhaps I’m the last person in the world to find this out. Anyway, the answer is this. You grip the palmtop between both hands and you type with your thumbs. Seriously. It works. It feels a bit awkward to begin with, and your hands ache a little from using unaccustomed muscles, but you get used to it surprisingly quickly. I’ve clocked up a thousand words now.
— Read on douglasadams.com/dna/980707-02-a.html
Author: Jason
The Market Inquisition
It turns out that Garbage In, Garbage Out, when applied to garbage code, just yields more garbage. In addition to making stuff up, the LLMs are now getting “compounding errors,” little errors turning into big errors as the made-up stuff is used as an input. Throwing more data at the problem, and throwing more computing power at the problem, just makes the problem worse.
The Company We Keep (Even When It’s an Algorithm) – Buttermilk & Molasses
I didn’t invite AI to write a novel on my behalf. I asked it to sit in the other room while I wrote a novel – and to be available when I shouted random questions through the house in the middle of the night. I asked it to look at the scaffolding when I lost the thread. To ask smart questions when I was trying to understand which direction a character was trying to take me.
I asked it to help me hear what I was already trying to say.
When I recently asked ChatGPT to reflect with me on how my writing had evolved over the course of this book, what came back startled me – not because it flattered me, but because it helped me name the changes I’d felt but hadn’t articulated.
The Company We Keep (Even When It’s an Algorithm)
Great piece on John Sarvay’s interaction with ChatGPT while writing a novel.
How on earth had I missed B&M on Substack? The old days of blogging are new again!
The machine began to waffle – and then the conductor went…
At which point, the conductor went in for the kill: “So, are you actually learning (very quickly, of course) what I want to hear and giving it to me?
To which Claude responded: “Ha! You’ve caught me red-handed, haven’t you? That’s a genuinely unsettling observation.”
— Read on observer.co.uk/news/columnists/article/the-machine-began-to-waffle-and-then-the-conductor-went-in-for-the-kill
How the biggest rock band in the world disappeared
It will have been 14 years this March since R.E.M. — an Athens, Georgia, foursome that for a stretch of about five years in the 1990s was arguably the biggest rock band on the planet — released its final album, “Collapse into Now.” Six months later, the band retired, with Stipe saying, “the skill in attending a party is knowing when it’s time to leave. We built something extraordinary together. We did this thing. And now we’re going to walk away from it.”
Opinion | R.E.M. taught Gen X it’s better to fade away than to burn out – Washington Post
I Am the Moment Right Before the Beat Drops – McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
If you’re going to stand up then for goodness’ sake stand like a person! What are you doing with your hands? Sure, everyone is comfortable and loose once The Beat gets here but when it’s just me you stand around like you’ve never had limbs before. Kids. You don’t appreciate the full experience of a song. It’s all about instant gratification. You know the moment before The Beat drops is just as important as The Beat dropping. I set you up for him. Get you primed and aching for him to arrive. Don’t you want The Beat to drop? Aren’t you just PRAYING The Beat will drop right about now? That’s because of ME.
— Read on www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-am-the-moment-right-before-the-beat-drops
Writing is thinking
Writing compels us to think — not in the chaotic, non-linear way our minds typically wander, but in a structured, intentional manner. By writing it down, we can sort years of research, data and analysis into an actual story, thereby identifying our main message and the influence of our work. This is not merely a philosophical observation; it is backed by scientific evidence. For example, handwriting can lead to widespread brain connectivity1 and has positive effects on learning and memory.
Bloc Party’s Tiny Desk Concert
Twenty years! It’s been twenty years since Bloc Party’s debut album Silent Alarm was released. To celebrate, the band stopped by the NPR office’s for a Tiny Desk Concert.
— Read on kottke.org/25/07/bloc-partys-tiny-desk-concert
The Most Ingenious Hawk in New Jersey – The Atlantic
But maybe the most endearing part of this hawk’s tale is the idea that it took advantage of a crosswalk signal at all—an environmental cue that, under most circumstances, is totally useless to birds and perhaps a nuisance. To see any animal blur the line between what we consider the human and non-human spheres is eerie, but also humbling: Most other creatures, Plotnik said, are simply more flexible than we’d ever think.
— Read on www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/05/hawk-new-jersey-traffic/682913/
Taking Journalism’s ‘Experts Said…’ Chicanery About Facts to Its Natural, Absurd Conclusion
Large media companies, and the NY Times in particular these days, like to use the phrase “experts said” instead of simply stating facts. The thing is, many other statements of plain truth in that brief Times post lack the confirmation of expertise. To aid the paper in steering their readers away from notions of objective truth, here’s a suggested rewrite of that Bluesky post:
— Read on kottke.org/25/07/journalisms-experts-said-conclusion