Anarchy, technology, and community: Some thoughts on The Dawn of Everything More than notes and less than an essay, but it wasn’t doing anybody any good sitting on my laptop.

As you ring the old year out, remember well my verse: Count your blessings every one—for next year could be worse.

Happy new year everybody!

Canning the New Year’s sauerkraut and listening to medieval Christmas music.

An AI researcher on the extreme difficulty of aligning AI with human values.

Family portrait.

Folks, I know we are all tired of hearing about supply-chain issues, but this one is serious: due to years of overexcitement on social media and in text messages, there is a dire global shortage of exclamation points. Please consider using alternate punctunation such as the interrobang, or try repurposing common glyphs like the percent sign for interesting effect. Or just keep calm and save some excitement for the disadvantaged of our increasingly small planet. Thank you for your help ∆

Another batch of cherry spatulas. People keep buying them, so I keep making them. Vox populi, vox pecuniae.

Saved the fun part for Friday afternoon.

Amid all the talk of index cards, here is how I keep my recipes… or rather receipts, to use the older term. A receipt is something received and therefore (by implication) given; a recipe is an algorithm to be followed slavishly. Receipts make me part of a human community; recipes make me a mechanical instrument.

So says I, anyhow.

It is a lovely box, I think. A good find.