Why is AI so terrible at writing press releases? (Even with last year's as a prompt, and my new report as source material). It's the one job I really want to delegate to AI and which in theory it should be good at!
I NEED HELP!
Please take this quick, meaningless 19 question survey so I can get data for my students to learn stats!
I did a similar version a few months ago but missed an important question type. Even if you did the old one, please do it again!
Please circulate widely!
My peas are almost over (plant them in November!). Big crop this year. They get evicted soon because I need space for summer veg!
First new crop of 2026!
Politics innit?
In all seriousness, good politics and good policy are not the same thing. The Greens don't yet have to worry about the workability of their national policies but at a local level this is going to come back to bite them:
bsky.app/profile/kati...
My daughter still occasionally pronounces words wrong and she teaches phonology (which is basically phonetics-on-steroids) at a very famous university 😂
My employer now wants me to use my personal phone for business purposes including during international travel. That’ll be a big fat no from me!
Yeah these replacement buses basically skip all the small stations even though they are supposed to stop there! This was an SNCF bus/driver for once, when they contract local bus companies the drivers know the way.
Also it's t-shirt weather and the bus heating is on full blast. Going to get a free sauna this morning 😓
On yet another SNCF rail replacement bus and the driver doesn't know the way 😂. A passenger has gone up front to help out.
SNCF has chosen Easter weekend to not run any trains to my town, so after a nice day in Toulouse I am now on a very smelly and crowded bus home. And there wasn't enough room for everyone so I can count myself lucky...
Our plan to go to a free concert was foiled by half of Toulouse having the same idea, so we (me, youngest offspring + his Swedish partner) went for very authentic fika instead.
cafefika.fr
I'm not in the least surprised given his history. But I guess what is disturbing is that the Green party can't see how Trumpian this is.
Not that you need any more reasons to hate these home office proposals, but this is too good a point not to repost.
If the Patagonia mom reference is to the post I am thinking about, the point was not that they were protesting, but how radical their signs were.
the solution to "not wanting to write" is the same as the solution to roughly 90% of problems writers face: you knuckle the fuck down and write. there is no short-cut that will make you better at your job. just do it.
Passenger cars are a pretty small share of NOx emissions these days, not that I am defending cars of course - I am a fully signed up member of the war on cars brigade ;)
Most vehicular NOx emissions come from heavy duty vehicles, which is the segment of the fleet that has been cleaned up the most in the last 10 years (combination of Euro VI requiring after proper aftertreatment of truck emissions from 2015, and electrification of some segments, especially buses).
Paris quality of life has been greatly improved by fewer cars - but the claims about the impact on air pollution are very exaggerated almost to the point of dishonesty.
Do you have data for that? The data I have seen (on reductions in particulates and NOx between 2010 and 2024) puts Paris in the middle of the pack. Other European cities made similar or better improvements over the same period.
I see this repeated all the time without any mention of the successive rounds of emissions legislation that are the main reason for the fall in air pollution. Much of that map (outside the ring road) isn’t even Paris! And there is still congestion on the périphérique.
This makes me so angry. There’s a personal angle sure (if my British son and his British partner have a child, it won’t be British -good luck explaining that to airlines & border officials!) but mostly it‘s just the total unreasonableness. Can’t imagine ever voting Labour again.
Haha good luck! My son never really did any cooking at home but has turned into quite a decent cook now - I sometimes steal his recipes.
Can't have a cat of my own due to allergies so here is one we borrowed while in Greece. And no it's not photoshopped
#caturday
The only good thing about Farage from my POV is feeling smug about looking 10-15 years younger than him (we are almost exactly the same age).
Well, he finds AI mostly useless for his job too 🤪. He basically doesn’t use AI to code at all, because he likes to code, he’s very fast, and he prefers to have a deep understanding rather than taking short cuts. He has some limited use-cases for it (as do I) but that’s it!
I find it very hard to unpick the reality of how useful AI really is (given that it seems mostly useless in my job). So today I asked my son, who works as a data engineer for a small tech company whose business is using AI to help deliver data-driven insights to sports professionals and fans. And …
People are absolutely sick of politicians who never admit fault and never fully say sorry. This was a chance to be distinctive, and it was missed: instead it's the usual half-truths, untruths, and half-apologies. Politics as usual. It's not the biggest deal, but it does speak to character.
My eldest is a teacher at a Paris university and she was 4 months old on 9/11 - which kind of blows my mind if I try to think about it 🤪
