Just been listening to a recording of Debussy’s Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune. I can’t remember when I last sat down and gave this piece my full focus and attention. My goodness it’s beautiful. If you’re at a loss as to what to do this evening, you won’t regret making time for this work.
For the past couple of weeks I've been messing around with open weight locally-hosted LLMs. They're better than ever. I'd recommend having a play... loosemore.com/2026/04/16/p...
it’s a coordinated assault on the skills and virtues of independent critical thought, which enable one to resist illegitimate power.
I’ve especially appreciated the diversity of themes, for example how you’ve covered the history of counting across civilisations. Then into physics and the universe. It’s a unique book.
Short answer, via Numberphile - I then pre-ordered the Kindle version, with Audible alongside. Longer answer, I read *a lot* (a book a week or more) and I love mathematics, both popular and academic. I’m always on the look out for books. Maths, computers, law, history, archives etc.
You’re very welcome. It’s both very readable and brilliantly mind boggling :-)
Also a massive shout out to @richardelwes.bsky.social for writing such a wonderful book. Very readable and informative. Highly recommended!
For more info about the book, see: richardelwes.co.uk/huge-numbers/ It’s really interesting, covering the rich history of number systems, to appreciating the scale of things, to the glory of abstract hugeness.
I’m reading a book on Huge Numbers. And this is an outstanding fact about each and every human: “This is what we are, from the perspective of particle physics: each of us a vast constellation of quarks, likely outnumbering stars in the observable universe at around a hundred octillion (10 exp 29)”
Well, this is very nice. If you've never used the HMC correspondence files for the early years of the National Register of Archives, you are missing out on a *lot* of potential background info on English counties, their movers and shakers. Glad to see Derbyshire explored!
Very glad to share the news that I’ve been elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh; it’s a remarkable honour to be part of its long history. Congrats to everyone in this year’s cohort of Fellows! Nice to see some friends in there too.
This planet — with all its troubles — is worth caring for.
That should be our single purpose, as a species: To be stewards of this magnificent world, ensuring it thrives long into the future.
Lots of people here are thinking of you and sending you all good wishes - me very much included.
Social Science Adviser Government Office for Science Apply before 11:55 pm on Monday 13th April 2026 Government Office for Science
The Government Chief Scientific Adviser will have a year focusing on the theme of ‘Trustworthy Information’. Great role in her office for a social scientist to provide support on this crucial topic and on other projects (£33k - £40k)
www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi...
GDS's big refresh of www.data.gov.uk is now live
"The home of UK public data to inform decisions and build services"
#govtech #datasharing #opendata -adjacent
Good news: not just one open job, but two! Both are postdocs in philosophy of science/ML working with my @technomoralfutures.bsky.social co-Director Dr Emily Sullivan on issues in ML scientific understanding and explanation. Ads for a 3 year post and 2 year post are linked below, apply by 20 April
Deeply grateful to the UK AI and Robotics research community for this Leadership Award. So many wonderful researchers were honoured with me tonight - my own award would not be possible without my amazing @braiduk.bsky.social @technomoralfutures.bsky.social @edfuturesinstitute.bsky.social colleagues
What a breath of fresh air to see an online regulator approaching the task with sarcasm and humour, not sanctimony and on-cue tears.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...
‘Governments investing in AI should consider making equivalent investments in the data collection that AI currently cannot reach.’
In my world that includes means paying more attention to libraries and archives
www.ft.com/content/0c63...
There is substantial denial of sorts in the groups whose tastes and positions do align in this way, though denial isn't entirely right: the reason why goalposts seem to shift in the face of a new capability is often because the position the critic takes is derived from a different set of values.
This cover allows those with this alignment to do away with the deeply uncomfortable and repeated burden of deciding whether a critic might have something worthwhile to say that they cannot bring themselves to see.
LLMs have a 'there, there' and they do work for some things, in some cases shockingly well. And this is a good thing. Look at US instability (to say nothing of knock on effects) and tell me you think it could weather a bubble where hundreds of billions in investment was premised on a total lie.
In order to qualify as a #VanitySlopWang the result must both (a) contain your name, and (b) be clearly insane
If the result does not include your name - exact match - that is not a #VanitySlopWang. It just means you’re not very famous
If the results returned contain your name and no indication the machines are having a stroke, that is not a #VanitySlopWang. That’s just an old school vanity search
The rules of #VanitySlopWang
(1) choose a subject you’ve written about on the interwebs
(2) formulate a search query for that topic and head to Google in AI mode
Oooh this will be good. @gavinfreeguard.com is the digital govt mega brain and his new think tank will be well worth a follow
Had a great time yesterday talking about #webarchiving at the DPC clinic - you can catch the recording here: www.dpconline.org/events/event...
