h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

AI Lessons from Uncle Screwtape

A few months ago, Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic, mused on stage about the impact of generative AI on society.

“I don’t know how we’ll respond,” he told Kenny Malone of NPR’s Planet Money. “A hundred years ago, CS Lewis wrote a book called The Screwtape Letters, about a demon in Hell whose job is writing letters to their boss, a senior demon, a manager demo

https://timharford.com/2026/11/ai-lessons-from-uncle-screwtape/

#UndercoverEconomist

Spaghetti and pencils https://improbable.com/2026/11/03/spaghetti-and-pencils/

If you didn’t buy this for all the nerds in your life last year, you can remedy that this Christmas https://vole.wtf/doctype/

In the last 48hrs the UK Office of National Statistics removed 878 repositories from their public github account. Feels bad.

https://github.com/uk-gov-mirror/deleted-repo-report

In case you missed it over the weekend, I was a guest on the latest episode of Curious Cases! Join us for a nice chat about tessellation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0032j1g/curious-cases-tessellation-proliferation

New post: I've stuck a reflashed Xteink e-reader to my wall and it tells me whether to cycle or take the train.

I've written a little bit about this project on my blog including some gotchas if you're tempted to do this yourself.

https://whitebeard.blog/posts/cycle-or-train/

#Elm #ESP32 #eink

@paulmison oh my god it's still live https://www.scriptarchive.com

The design brief for the new CTAO telescope array appears to be "make them look like implausible props from a sci-fi movie" and I am in love

I’ve built a daily geography quiz. Pin five world cities on a map with no labels, then answer three questions about each. How close can you get? https://knowwhereconsulting.co.uk/quiz/cities/

🗺️ Thank you, Land Talks!

Big thanks to Henry Morris and Francis Irving @frabcus for having us last week. Kate Swade took the stage to talk about the need for communities to have a better understanding of who owns the land and buildings in their area. She also shared stories about how community groups and campaigners are using LandExplorer to bolster their campaigning and investigations.

We’ve added the slides to our website, which is linked above!

#HousingJustice #LandExplorer #HousingOrganising #DataForGood

I didn't have "replace charging connector on your laptop" on my todo list today, but here we are. It's not even #MaintenanceMonday!

Not the prettiest fix, but was using the only socket I had to hand, and it'll do until I can source one the right size.

Laptop is back charging nicely.

It's #mathober day 3, and the prompt is PERMUTATION. Here's a little zine I made about different kinds of permutations! PDF: https://katiesteckles.co.uk/mo3

Saw that Digger movie. You are advised to ignore whichever critics did not dig it.

Did you know that I make brief notes about AND RENDER ULTIMATE JUDGMENT UPON every movie I watch these days? At that letterboxd site. Eg: https://boxd.it/gAXWVp

The last four digits of 16¹⁶ https://aperiodical.com/2026/10/the-last-four-digits-of-16%c2%b9%e2%81%b6/

I made a thing: it's called the DNS Museum, and it's because I kept joking at the start of my talk, "Bizarre and Unusual Uses of DNS" that a lot of the things weren't alive anymore - so it was more like a museum of DNS and I was the curator. Anyway, I'm on holiday right now so I finally got around to doing something about that joke.

Consider this a first draft, I have way more notes about other things to add at some point. It's also a little bland, but one thing I'm not is a designer. Let me know about any issues - AI was used to help create the site, but of course I'm responsible for any mistakes. It's on GitHub too, so PRs are welcome.

https://dns.museum