An AI-free OS for an AI-free product line with a written guarantee from Apple not to insert AI into users’ devices at a later date.

There was a Herald profile published that day, falsely claiming he was captain of the First XV at school (Hugh found this hilarious). I did not cite that fake news in the just-expanded Wikipedia article about him. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Wi...

A white-bearded 81-year-old in a bush shirt signing books.

Yesterday I was one of a crowd attending the launch of Hugh Wilson's latest book, Hinewai Reflections—his collected botanical illustration. Hugh signed books and chatted with a long queue of fans.

Serpentine spring attached to a cheap plastic clip held on by two tacks and a staple, and the rusty ghost of a spring where the clips have popped off.

Today in DIY: finding spring clips to replace the crappy ones that come with an IKEA couch.

Took 1 hour for me!

I thought everyone knew that the library app can generate a library card barcode meaning you can issue library items using your phone - but apparently not!
AND you can add your kids' cards. It's SUPER useful. ^MT

(breathes on dice) pleasepleaseplease

I’m happy to take that bet.

Generation X - Wikipedia

Although it deeply pains me to point it out, being born in 1965 would make him Generation X, not a boomer. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generat...

A four-panel comic. In panel 1, two people are standing in the forest, wearing backpacks. The red-haired person says "I've never hiked with a naturalist before! I'm excited. I hope I brought enough water." The brown-haired person says "I'm sure you did. Let's go!" In panel 2, the brown-haired person points at various nature features. "Look, a red eft! It's the teenaged form of the Eastern Newt. Ooh, wintergreen! Wanna smell it? I hear a Chestnut-sided Warbler. Glacial till. Rubble of the last ice age!" In panel 3, the naturalist points to more nature items. "This forest seems early successional. Aw, a leafcutter bee with a piece of leaf! Wow, deer poor! Wow, fungi growing out of the deer poop!!" The red-haired person says "Okay, but..." In panel 4, the red-haired person continues, "It's been an hour and we've walked three feet." The brown-haired person exclaims, looking excited, "Three amazing feet!"

Sometimes you make a new comic, and sometimes you redraw an old one because you lost the original high res file 😅

never forget

Holacanthella paucispinosa on the cover of this month's issue of Nature Ecology and Evolution. Photo by Frank Ashwood

Breaking news: giant springtail from Aotearoa NZ made the cover of @natecoevo.nature.com!

This amazing pic of H. paucispinosa by @frankashwood.bsky.social should lure readers to the global study by @zheng-zhou.bsky.social et al on soil animal trophic diversity 🌍🌿🕷️🪱🪳🧪
www.nature.com/natecolevol/...

To my non tech normies, PSA: when you share a link, everything after the ? is tracking. Those “query parameters” tell companies exactly how you arrived, what app you clicked, which ad or email sent you, sometimes a unique identifier tied to you. You can delete everything after the question mark.

And there’s so much volunteer work involved in checking every statement against the rather sparse references supplied…

Ooh who/which? This would make a great talk at the WikiCon.

“When the river bursts its banks, or drains are popping manhole covers, that’s the river talking to us. It’s telling us: Hey, you’ve constrained me, you’ve constricted me, and I’m screaming and shouting about that.” — Dan Hikuroa.

War Horse: An Illustrated Review War Horse: An Illustrated Review by Lisa Hanawalt I could write an entire book about horses and how into them I am, but let’s just say that I was a horse from ages eight to fourteen. Former …

This reminds me of quite possibly the best review of anything, ever. medium.com/the-hairpin/...

Fabulous Mountain Goats gig at Meow Nui; Darnielle has such faith in his fans he can just hand the vocals over to them for a line or two.

(The person calling for “Up the Wolves” all through the gig amazingly got her wish at the end of the encore. But is this behaviour we want to reward.)

Seeing @themountaingoats.bsky.social tonight, 19 years after the last time (Chapel Hill NC). I once played MG songs as the musical act for an gallery opening right beside Darnielle’s recording studio but he did not materialise, thank goodness.

Argument by word cloud.

Just to crib Jan's great chart here a little bit - here are just a few of the headlines that came out when growth somewhat slowed in 2024

Many, many media outlets do not really know how to handle technological change like this

Multiple copies of the score in the Internet Archive as well. archive.org/search?query...

Also he uses “begs the question” wrong.

Luke Malpass is such a weaselly writer. “Fast-track policies, controversial to some…” Something’s either controversial or it’s not, and I’d say 27,000 submissions against and protests in the streets probably meet the criteria for “controversial”. thespinoff.co.nz/politics/20-...

Because it’s in the public domain it’s being transcribed and proofread by Wikisource volunteers, so everyone will be able to download it as an ebook they can actually own and keep. en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rid...

Dinosaur skeletons are selling for millions. Is science missing out? | CNN The sale of a Triceratops fossil for $5.55 million is the latest in a list of dinosaur specimens fetching colossal fees in commercial sales. What does that mean for researchers and museums?

Yes, scientists and museum visitors are missing out every time one of these exemplar specimens are sold and hidden away in private collections.

Denniston Plateau should be a scientific reserve. This didn’t happen because of mana whenua objections. The head of the local hapū is on the board of the company who wants to mine the plateau. This should be a national scandal.

Bloody hell. Researchers invented a disease, published two fake papers to see if LLM’s would ingest them and kick them up as fact — and then it broke containment and all the major AI’s bought in. Information pollution.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

how the gov. wants us to react to this YouTube video by Man Carrying Thing

Man Carrying Thing does not miss