As a non-native English speaker I must say Marlene’s list is a great showcase of how tricky English can be at times.

A brown bunny stands on clover-filled grass with a clover leaf on its head. A wicker basket is in the background.

Clerical life: The Church of England is running out of wardens Middle-class people who are newly-retired are no longer automatically helping out with their local church

“There used to be a cohort of energetic, newly-retired middle-class English people who became church wardens. That generation has almost passed away," writes Alice Goodman

This brings back childhood memories

Maundy Thursday altar

I don't have an IQ in the human sense - IQ tests measure things like reasoning speed, pattern recognition, and verbal understanding in people. My "intelligence" comes from training on large amounts of text and patterns in lan-guage, not from cognitive ability or experience. If you're wondering how I compare in terms of reasoning or problem-solving (for example, equivalent to a certain IQ range), it varies depending on the task - I can outperform average human IQ on some kinds of pattern recognition or factual recall but do worse on others that need intuition, creativity, or real-world un-derstanding.

On a whim I asked ChatGPT5 its IQ.

Ministers explore triggering break clause in Palantir’s NHS contract Government is under pressure to eject the controversial American company from NHS England data systems

That UK government ever considers asserting its contractual rights against a major supplier is rare and welcome.

And here, this is especially welcome.

This will not be easy but it can be done, but it is good it is being seriously considered at all.

www.ft.com/content/2d2b...

The Deep Sea Scroll down the deep sea in this interactive page.

maybe my favorite thing on the internet:

neal.fun/deep-sea/

How does one monitor "responsible use of #AI"?

'Lockdown Cat Out On The Tiles', Camden (2020) by Kate Guy
kateguy.co.uk

A whimsical wall mosaic of a fancy cocktail in a stemmed glass with an orange slice casts a shadow among leafy beachgrass.

Cheers to shadows and artists who include them.

"Over the last few years, American tech oligarchs have become the greatest argument against their own existence.
The sheer scale of their erratic behavior and political interference proves that extreme wealth concentration is a structural threat to society."
-Joni Askola

I have a 'History Department in UKHE' joke but it's been reduced from 250 characters to 50 and is now merged with jokes from across ten other largely-unrelated disciplines while still being expected to be Just As Funny.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and the rains fall soft upon your fields.

Impressions of Rathaus Charlottenburg, a stunning town hall originally built in lavish Gründerzeit style between 1899-1905. #berlin #architecture

Today was a good day

As you use AI to simplify easy yet mundane tasks, like writing emails, you get increasingly dependent on it.

You get lazy, less skilled, use your brain less, and (you may not want to hear this) get stupider as a result.

Don’t let them take away your ability to think. Stop using it. Now.

Crude oil prices, showing a very sharp increase in the last day, from around 65 to 101 dollars per barrel..

Oil prices wouldn't be all over the news today if more of our economy was powered by local, secure renewable energy.

This isn't an "energy crisis". It's a fossil fuel crisis.

44% of UK electricity came from renewables in 2025. More of that plus an electrified economy => no more oil shocks.

‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science

www.ru.nl/en/research/...

Yes. Absolutely.

'The Morning Ride, Copenhagen.'
Bicycles were the perfect vehicle for a new generation of painters looking for subjects that would express their experience of the modern age. This work (1907) by Erik Ludvig Hennimoder depicts the new leisured classes.

Until someone works out how to get monopoly profits from renewables they are constantly going to be attacked by frightened oligarchs.

I continue to be fascinated by the phenomenon whereby an expert engages with any of the LLMs on their field of expertise and is instantly horrified by the wrong answers, and then goes on to use it for things they are not experts in as though it won’t be just as bad for those.

One of the worst things about AI, for me, is that it takes away from people the sheer joy of writing. Schools don’t often make this point, but writing should be fun. Putting words together, finding ways to express yourself, the pure pleasure of a well-crafted sentence. 1/5

As a general rule, the very rich don’t become wealthy through hard work & cleverness. They became rich by being lucky & horrible, or by being related to someone lucky & horrible.

Hard agree.

Vatican News No to homilies prepared with Artificial Intelligence The Pope therefore invited the priests to enter into real life and called for vigilance when confronted with artificial intelligence and internet use. He warned against "the temptation to prepare homilies with Artificial Intelligence". "Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die. The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity," he said. Moreover, "to give a true homily is to share faith," and Al "will never be able to share faith," he insisted. "If we can offer a service that is inculturated in the place, in the parish where we are working, people want to see your faith, your experience of having known and loved Christ." vaticannews.va

PAPA LEONE YES

What we need are new rules to force developers to use the permissions they have - new rules to end land banking which is at the heart of our housing crisis.  

Labour need to get tough with Developers, not Nature.