Some hopefully enjoyable reads in a mad time.
The Space Erasure - by Todd Zwillich - Off Message: Immigrants have always been good for the country.
Private Equity Vampires Suck - by Hamilton Nolan: Good interview about an interesting seeming book.
Diabolus Ex Machina - by Amanda Guinzburg: fascinating look at how an LLM would have sabotaged on writer’s query package.
lead, bath, and beyond - by Allison Epstein: The funniest historian on the internet is back! Go subscribe!
Hegseth to Remove Harvey Milk's Name from U.S. Navy Ship: The bigotry is the point.
How to become a right-wing star? Harass people: The cruelty is the point.
Well, We All Are Going To Die: The MAGA Culture of Death: Headline says it all.
For He Can Creep - Reactor: The written version of this story is superior to the version that was made for Love, Death, and Robots.
The bizarre story of a maths proof that is only true in Japan | New Scientist: I kind of admire this man’s ability to remain in his own reality.
ICE officers stuck in Djibouti shipping container with deported migrants - The Washington Post: Trump would rather torture the people who work for him than treat a brown immigrant with any dignity.
Elon Musk's job has already been automated: Thoughtful look at the systems that have to be torn out to restore out government’s functionality.
DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI to Help Kill Veterans Affairs Contracts — ProPublica: Probably going to talk about this more, but this idiot violated just about every rule of good software development/engineering and screwed over vets in the process. I really hate these smug Dunning-Krugerites.
Inventing the Renaissance: Ada Palmer - Paul Krugman: Fascinating subject, and Krugman is a good interviewer.
What I’m hearing about NCAA revenue sharing: $40M football rosters, unintended consequences - The Athletic: This only ends with the players being employees or the end of revenue sports at the collegiate level.
A knockout blow for LLMs? - by Gary Marcus - Marcus on AI: LLM’s results get much worse when you introduce any complexity. And it’s sneaky, since in less complex situations, it can appear as they have a general solution, only to fail in the more complex scenarios.
Have the best possible week, everyone.