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I think clamouring for “sovereign frontier AI” is what “middle powers” shouldn’t do. Instead, they should be looking for (and funding) Pareto-optimal models to serve their critical sectors of the economy. You don’t need Fable running triage on customer support tickets, you don’t need Kimi K3 to manage your e-commerce catalogue. Europe is already paying “cloud rent” to the US by way of Amazon, Visa, and Uber. European companies dumping billions in token spend into US labs...
Let me just say that again, because I can’t quite believe it. My son, our little bundle of joy and chaos, starts school today. He turns 5 in October and is very very ready for school. I think. No, he is. He is most definitely ready, and ohhh so excited. I’m not sure I am though. I mean it was only yesterday I was holding him, swaddled tight, moments after he was born, watching this tiny little squishy thing sucking on the edge of the towel. My son. I didn’t know I was...
Arfur, next door's barky dog (Arf! Arf!) has just given up his morning barkfest; now the builders have started up over the road with their whining drills and clanging hammers.What's a girl to do, trying to home-record vocals this week?Actually, I've already been playing guitar and bass this morning and I'm resting the track to see what it sounds like before doing anything else to it. It's a song that was sounding turgid, so I upped the BPMs by ten and it has come to life....
Look, I don’t buy LEGO sets that much anymore. I fawn over them, look at photos of them, but resist the urge to buy them. But this one got me. I could not resist. One hour ago, I didn't know this set existed, and now I’m going to start building it. This is the one absurd LEGO set I’ll allow myself to buy. LEGO Main Street, U.S.A. is my LEGO Millennium Falcon.
Another week :3c I finally caved and bought myself a new chair. It was a bit expensive, but we managed to get them $500 off!1 Only a few more items until my entire desk setup is complete !! Just waiting for the new desk mat to arrive from SecretLab, and then it'll be all done! Otherwise, like usual the week was pretty low-key. We went for a yummy dinner with a few friends after going shopping on the weekend. Was nice being social. I also finally beat the base Stormblood...
Exactly what VFX Supervisor Marion Spates says here. […] I mean I hope everyone is excited as I am about what I do. The one thing I try to encourage every day is for us all to have fun. If people aren’t having fun, you are not going to get best work out of people. Reply via Email
I am of an age that I remember well the cool stereo systems we had in the 1980's, 1990's and early 2000s.Especially I love stereo system components - Amplifier, Radio, Graphic equaliser, tape deck, DAT recorder, CD player, SACD players, Minidisc deck, LaserDisc and DVD's.I drooled over such systems when looking around Sony Central shop here in Adelaide (now sadly gone) - dreaming of the day I could save the money to afford to get them - especially the ES (Elevated...
Located in southern Beijing, the Temple of Heaven is one of the most remarkable imperial architectural complexes in China and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Originally built during the Ming Dynasty and later expanded in the Qing Dynasty, it served as the sacred place where emperors worshipped heaven and prayed for good harvests, favorable weather, and peace for the nation.Famous for its elegant Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, ancient ceremonial altars, and symbolic...
Successive governments stonewall any talk of strategic food reserves. They side with the grasshopper against the ant. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 13th August 2026 When a business makes long-term plans, they call it prudence. When a government makes long-term plans, they call it communism. Any sustained state intervention attracts the prefix “Soviet-style”, and triggers vicious attacks across the billionaire media. So governments have developed a bias...
Well, that was fun! Sometimes the NTT IndyCar Series can stage a street race that you almost feel obligated to watch, because you fear that it may be sleep inducing. Then out of the blue comes a track like Markham. It sounds like a cliché, but yesterday’s Ontario Honda Dealer’s Indy at Markham had it […]
In this series of posts, we’ll be featuring mathematical video and streaming channels from all over the internet, by speaking to the creators of the channel and asking them about what they do. We spoke to Ellie Sleightholm about her YouTube channel, on which she posts roughly once a week to share the beauty in mathematics. Channel title: Ellie SleightholmLink: youtube.com/elliesleightholm (YouTube) or instagram.com/ellieinstem (Instagram)Topics covered: Mainly mathematics...
At the end of a recent residential singing weekend I was acutely aware of absence when everyone had left. The silence was almost painful. It got me thinking about the different kinds of silence in singing. There are three kinds of silence in all music: before, during and after. Before The silence before singing is full of anticipation: anything can happen. What’s coming next? These silences occur at the very start of a concert; before the next song; immediately before a...
The Kodak Brownie Fiesta sat under many Christmas trees and on many birthday gift tables between 1962 and 1965 (or 1966; sources disagree). It was available by itself for about $6 or in a $10 outfit containing a flash holder, batteries, flashbulbs, film, and a strap. That $10 kit was meant to impress in its cute dual-clamshell box. That’s equivalent to the purchasing power of about $100 today, so the Fiesta was a respectable gift. A child or young adult opened the box and...
Swift Testing is the modern framework for writing tests in Swift, built around expressive macros like @Test, #expect, and #require. It’s the successor to XCTest and the default testing framework for new projects in Xcode. Instead of dozens of assertion methods, you work with a single expressive macro that tells you exactly why a test … → The post Swift Testing explained with code examples appeared first on SwiftLee.
Weekends weren’t born from someone’s great heart. From this The Guardian post, it seems Henry Ford popularized weekends. He wasn’t thinking about his employees’ well-being, but his own pockets. More people in the streets = more cars = more sales. That story reminded me of a line I heard in my first job: “Build a life you never need vacations from.” I don’t remember where I found it. I remember being at my desk wondering why I was doing. It stuck with me ever since. So what...
Python A-Z is a blog series about Python. Each day, I share insights, ideas and examples for different parts of Python development that match with the letter of the day. Blaugust is an annual blogging festival in August where the goal is to write a blog post every day of the month. Last year when I gave a talk Love Letter to Django in a local meetup, my main thread was about its ORM (Object–relational mapping) and a few things it enables. I’m a big fan of ORM as a model:...
Only three episodes left in season 3, and things get crazy from here right up to the final shot. Can’t wait to discuss everything with you all after the season wraps. But this week is a very special episode in the Howey household. It’s cameo time! Shay and I had an amazing set visit during the filming of season 3. I guess my character had caused some trouble since my brief cameo in season 1, because I ended up in the mines. But it ended up being the best thing that ever...
📜 I'm doing Blaugust this year. This is 10/?. I started writing this post in January 2026. I've been to a couple of courses at the Buddhist centre this year. I've been aware of it before, and having some spare time I decided to check it out. This is part of a vague desire to return to meditating. The centre is in an old vicarage, a pretty old building with a garden (not relevant at this time of year) and a wood burning stove (quite relevant) in a little sitting / café /...
I once wrote here that sometimes I forgot about August 17, the (supposedly) Indonesia’s independence day had I didn’t checked my social media timeline and saw videos of folks doing the flag ceremony or kampung festivities. Today, I wanted to forget about it, because I honestly feel that there is no point of celebrating something so hollow, so rotten, and so broken beyond repair. The land where gods and goddesses’ whispered their stories, hopes, and fears, is now imploded...
Dear reader,Recent conversations around “Hardcore” IndieWeb have surprised me. Apparently, writing your blog isn’t sufficient, as everyone should eventually build their own websites and stop relying on third-party blogging platforms.Brennan Kenneth Brown, a writer I admire, uses a ladder analogy to encourage people to learn HTML and CSS in order to eliminate dependence from platforms that could shut down any day:I recommend platforms like BearBlog and Pika because when...
Our daily summer routine here in Las Vegas starts with a cup of coffee at 4 a.m. while we catch up on the news. Then we grab our water bottles and head out the door by 5 a.m. for our morning walk, taking advantage of what passes for the coolest part of the day. Even then, typical summer temperatures are already in the high 80s or low 90s. But it’s certainly better than being outside once the mercury starts its inevitable climb well into the triple digits.Around here, we’re...
Thanks to Ruben for surfacing this lovely post, and for his own thoughtful addition. Sylvia's journey from church upbringing to "nature as spirituality" mirrors my own path somewhat. Church I think I've always been an atheist; I never really believed in the teachings of the Catholic Church, even as a young child. Too inquisitive and stubborn and faced with too little evidence meant "blind faith" was off the table. Apologies to God, if you're real, for the lies I told...
Más de una vez me sorprendí con mails olvidados que encontré sin querer poniendo una palabra en el buscador de mi correo Gmail. Es divertido navegar por mails que tiene más de 10 años. Recordarás con quien te escribías, que proyectos tenías, cómo pensabas, las cosas que compartías y que te gustaba. Y más ahora con los sistemas que utilizan IA que pueden darle contexto cronológico a tu pasado creo que es buena opción seguir archivando los correos personales. Quizás en un...
The end of an era hughhowey.com There will be meat-book fanatics. People who care about the stories behind the stories. Readers who will pick up my Molly Fyde books and care about the person who wrote them, the fact that I spent years of my life sailing a run-down little boat between foreign islands in my 20s, a bedraggled vagabond, getting into hijinks, nearly getting killed, nearly killing himself, falling in and out of love, making incredible friends, and then turning...
Simon, Tommy and I have started doing a little 5k on the seafront, then having a couple of beers by the beach huts. It's very civilised.132 words · 1 image