Ted Herman

'It's offensively cheap': How solar power is quietly becoming bigger than nuclear 🌞https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20261023-how-solar-became-bigger-than-nuclear

This sign reminds me of political cartoons from previous centuries. Will people think of nominative determinism when they see it? (It's a pity that it was explained in smaller red print; much better to not have that.)

It's a mystery how this came to be, millenniums ago. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it. What were they thinking? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombra_d...

I happened to see this and without reading any notes, immediately I saw that the Winged Victory of Samothrace was being quoted. The image doesn't show how it sits apart in a cove, which enhances the quotation. crystalbridges.org/artworks/200...

blonde seule ne suffit pas

"tilting at windmills" means fighting imaginary enemies, or pursuing a battle that is pointless, foolish, or cannot be won.

What's cooking in your smart oven? "Anthropic said on Monday its experiments suggested small AI models may be months away from being capable enough to ​self-replicate on commercial internet-of-things (IoT) devices, such as smart ‌ovens and off-brand Android TV boxes."

@guan.dk www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Reminder: photography killed off painting.

This has a tech solution. We should be able to specify our individual preferences so that each of us gets to see our preferred geographic name. This would neither violate U.N. rules like Article 2(1), Article 2(4), nor UNCLOS.

On today's bike ride the path was briefly blocked by a gathering of mennonites. #homeschoolfieldtrip (I asked the AI, what is a gathering of mennonites called: it's a conference of mennonites, but that term only applies when it's a formal gathering, like a "synod" or "presbytery".)

Quote from Cory Miller (UCSD)

Fini les profs, fini les bouquins, fini les regards noirs des profs. 🇫🇷 🏫 (with apologies to Alice Cooper's School's Out)

Several times in the past two days I've seen praying mantises along the path (both green and brown).

GongshouFace restofworld.org/2026/china-o...

The firm says its scientists have found a way to remove the model's bias using sophisticated technology that amounts to "AI brain surgery," and are now set to publish what they call a "Westernized" version of Qwen. www.cbsnews.com/news/china-a...

Looks like the weighted geographic center of all the data center clusters will be in the Eastern part of the country.

🇲🇦 Le #Maroc a pour la première fois de son histoire nommé une #femme comme Première ministre, Fatima Ezzahra El #Mansouri

The bureaucratic class must be perpetuated.

Game over for Big Pharma. restofworld.org/2026/china-a...

Possibly one of the most affordable and efficient modes of personal transport. Yet, the news is: "the Scourge of E-Bikes". This is about behavior rather than technology.

@polborta.bsky.social Svane² !

The smell of pumpkin spice gives me a headache. Bad time of year.

I almost never think about the Roman empire.

"Every major content platform is now flooded with AI-generated material, and creators are paying the price" Something like Gresham's Law.

"AI enthusiasm has become quasi-religious — skeptics are treated as outcasts, and staying on the sidelines risks getting burned while everyone else rides the train higher." So, fear of AI is real -- because p(doom) is large or fear of missing out. Maybe both?

Hot LLM action! spectrum.ieee.org/llms-for-chi...

I nice idea, but I fear that the robots would all move to Caribbean tax havens. restofworld.org/2026/robot-t...

We have to do <negative behavior> so that we can end up with <positive behavior>, the theme of our ironic new age.

Hurting Claude's feelings. Not a smart move.

“It looks like they’ve used electricity liberally in actually carrying out their proof,” said Georges Gonthier, a computer scientist at Inria in Paris.

Crea$e.

Canute sat on a chair by the ocean and commanded the incoming tide to stop wetting his clothes. The water kept rising, which proved to his flattering courtiers that even a powerful king has no control over nature, The tale shows Canute's wisdom and humility rather than foolishness,

($40,000,000,000,000)

I was never much a fan of Elvis, but I appreciate this news. floodmagazine.com/227741/elvis...

Dumplings with Tokens! restofworld.org/2026/china-a...

Early this morning I saw a lunar halo. "Even though it is one of the most common types of halo, the shape and orientation of the ice crystals responsible for the 22° halo are a topic of debate."

The logistic curve, integral to current AI models, was introduced for something else. Verhulst introduced the logistic curve to describe the dynamics of the human population, and the curve’s shape approximates what one would expect in what we now call the demographic transition.

The Great Hipster Heist of 2026.

So many Dolly Parton tributes. It's a super-competitive arena; my bias goes to the regional tributes. 1. (from East Tennessee) www.tiktok.com/@katie_inman... 2. (from 2011) gardenandgun.com/i-dream-of-d...