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Category: Post
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I wanted to see if AI could provide insight into local government. AI does analysis really well, those datasets are available, and it’s not something a normal person can do, unless they have hours to spare. Can AI simplify government bureaucracies so we can better understand our government. The answer? Yes, it can.
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Before carrying out any plan, actually do the obvious things. When you’re about to make a big decision, pause, and ask yourself what obvious things a reasonable person would do before making this sort of decision. Would they spend a full five minutes (by the clock) brainstorming alternative options before settling on a decision? Would they…
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“High-level sports,” according to Wallace, “are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty,” and this beauty’s “power and appeal…have to do with…human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.” Beautiful. Worth reading the whole thing.
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Although it’s still very much in beta, the cold approach revival is signaling something hopeful: young people want to get outside and meet each other! Both sides of the gender divide are clearly starving for connection, and no matter how clumsy it’s looking in Miami, flirting in the wild is a massive step in the…
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Generative deep learning improves reconstruction of global historical climate records. It uses, as you might guess from the title, generative deep learning to reconstruct global historical climate records. It does temperature and precipitation — Read on diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2026/02/28/from-noise-all-this/ It will be interesting to check in on this project in a few months to see what they’ve…
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I’ve been paying €20/month for an AI chatbot. Not the free tier — the premium one. The one that remembers things. The one that thinks with you. I used it for everything. Career decisions. Travel planning. Creative projects. Emotional processing. I treated it like an oracle, a thinking partner that never judges, never forgets, never…
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James Miller on X: “Massive real money bet on Kalshi that US will confirm that aliens exist before 2027. Bet was 20 min ago for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wonder if was someone with inside info in Trump administration. Market now at 37.7% for yes with 8 million volume.” / X — Read on…
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Gorsuch takes just about everyone on the court to task. Addressing the liberals, he suggests that Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson are hypocrites for upholding Biden-era executive actions but striking down Trump’s. Thanks for agreeing with me about Trump! But then why didn’t you agree with me on Biden? Addressing the dissenting conservatives, he suggests that…
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I tapped “verify.” I scanned my passport. I took a selfie. Three minutes later — done. Badge acquired. I felt a tiny dopamine hit of legitimacy. Then I did what apparently nobody does. I went and read the privacy policy and terms of service. Not LinkedIn’s. The other company’s. — Read on thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy/
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The behavior of 9 in mathematics borders on the absurd. Multiply any number by 9. Add the digits of the result. You get 9. 9 × 7 = 63. 6+3 = 9. 9 × 253 = 2277. 2+2+7+7 = 18. 1+8 = 9. 9 × 8,471 = 76,239. 7+6+2+3+9 = 27. 2+7 = 9. This…
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And I don’t just mean that nobody uses it anymore. Like, I knew everyone under 50 had moved on, but I didn’t realize the extent of the slop conveyor belt that’s replaced us. — Read on pilk.website/3/facebook-is-absolutely-cooked
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One way to reduce phone addiction is to keep a poem handy in a notes file. Every time you’re tempted to open your phone, start with that poem. It turns out that memorizing long poems focuses your thoughts in a very noticeable way. Select well, and you’re memorizing the best writing on earth – like…
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We have a competitive Illinois primary coming up in March, so I wanted to see if generative AI could help quickly get to a rough estimate of the best candidates to vote for. It certainly can – especially when you use it to filter out the most insane candidates with a goal of keeping them…
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It is one thing to take a beloved, multilayered book and make a movie that sets it in a new direction. It is quite another to make an adaptation that seems determined to reverse the meaning of the entire story. This film takes a thoughtful, political, radical work of art by a woman and makes…
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AI could be used as a lever to rebuild institutions, markets, and daily life in ways that are more productive, fair, and humane than today, but only if we design for that explicitly rather than just “optimize engagement” or “cut headcount.”
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After WWII, Western Europe had the chance to rebuild its own world, and did a great job. We moderns are not used to having to rebuild our world. It is now the case that strong AI is here/coming, and we will have to rebuild our own world. Many of us are terrified at this prospect,…
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Just as chat apps like WhatsApp collapsed the cost of international messaging from, say, 30 cents per text to zero, stablecoins are doing the same in financial transactions. The numbers bear this out: stablecoins moved over $12tn in value last year, after filtering out bots and other inorganic activity — volumes that are rising towards…
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customer service people get tons of complaints, it’s probably genuinely meaningful for them to occasionally have someone email their manager to compliment them instead of complain about them — Read on www.atvbt.com/send-appreciation-notes-to-companies/ I worked in a call center during college, and can confirm how exceedingly rare this is, and how wonderful it is to get…
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The New York Times asked me (and others) to suggest some things our descendents might be embarrassed about in the future. Things we do now, that might make future generations cringe. Good question! My reply is this short list — Read on kevinkelly.substack.com/p/cringeworthy-in-the-future
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