Sunday, April 26, 2026
Thursday, April 16, 2026
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Saturday, April 11, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
The Changing English Language
But as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words, and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger’s voice is replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler.
By the middle of his post, he’s writing in what might as well be a foreign language.
But it’s not a foreign language. It’s all English.
None of the story is real: not the blogger, not the town. But the language is real, or at least realistic. I constructed the passages myself, working from what we know about how English was written in each period.
[...]
And verely this name dyd me ſore affright, for who was this Maiſter wherof he ſpake? And what maner of man was he, that his very name ſholde be ſpoken wyth ſuche reuerence and drede. I wolde haue fledde but he purſued me and by myn avys he was the ſwifter, for he caught me full ſoone.
How far back in time can you understand English? | Image by Paul Lehr
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
I'm running through the world like a running back
Saturday, February 28, 2026
AI Articles
1. A.I. Isn't People: "I’ve watched all three of my children learn what a cat is, and in each case the number of pictures of a cat they needed to see was not “all of them.” It was like, two or three? Half a dozen, tops. I helped them learn to speak and read fluently, and the number of Reddit posts required was not “every Reddit post.” I don’t need to know what mechanism underlies human intelligence to rule out the possibility that it’s the same as what a large language model does."
2. Child's Play: "The future they seem to envisage is one in which people don’t really do anything at all, except follow the instructions given to them by machines."
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Classical paintings
There is a single explanation for the fact that the reconstructions do not resemble the statues depicted in ancient artworks, the fact that their use of color is unlike that in ancient mosaics and frescoes, and the fact that modern viewers find them ugly. It is that the reconstructions are painted very badly. There is no reason to posit that ancient Europeans had tastes radically unlike ours to explain our dislike of the reconstructions. The Greeks and Romans would have disliked them too, because the reconstructed polychromy is no good.
Thursday, January 15, 2026
our pets heads are falling off
"theres a miami in florida and a miami in ohio, theres an indiana in indiana and an indiana in pennsylvania"
I need the "Rich Men North of Richmond" internet freak to turn that into a viral sensation for us.
MIAMI (FL) +8.5 TEAM OF DESTINY
TIEBREAKER IS 1 POINT MIAMI WILL WIN 25-24.
My only New Year resolution is to win at least one segment of bowl pick them 2025
Miami vs Indiana (-8.5): team of destiny
Tiebreaker: 16 points
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Still seems like this can't be right
This one's for all the Tostitos.
Miami vs Indiana (-8.5)
Tiebreaker if necessary: actual winning margin of victorious team.
Wednesday, January 07, 2026
choo choo it's the lane train
beep beep, off the tracks, buster
Old Moist +3.5 This is a team of destiny. And by destiny, I mean institutionalized racism.
Indiana -4 Mean and nasty. Just knocking fools over. Taking what they want and not letting you even have a sniff. But enough about Taft, Nico, and New Madison.
Indiana's name means "Land of the Indians", or simply "Indian Land".
Miami (FL) -3.5 v Old Mist: So does Old Mist have coaches? How is that working?
Oregon v Indiana -4: I Believe


