Maybe there will be some links this time.

Happenings

  • School open evening this week, meaning I had a lovely 13 hours at work. On the plus side, my room is cleaner than it has ever been, and it's nice that some of the kids come and help out. Teaching would always be a joy if the open evening helpers were a representative sample.
  • Took my car in for repair, but the reason ended up being stupid and embarrassing. For a while we've felt a grinding in the pedals while steering. Turns out the reason was our (generic) footwell mat was pushed up the backand behind the steering while. The shaft of the steering wheel was snagging and vibrating the mat, which in turn was vibrating the pedals. Oh well, they didn't charge us, which was very nice of them.
  • Today was the scarecrow festival. Some family joined us to visit the scarecrows of Broseley. We didn't win, but I think our scarecrow — based on Julia Donaldson's Highway Rat was pretty good as a first entry.
    A Highway Rat scarecrow outside a houuse. He hoids a toy cutlass, and wears a white shirt, purple trousers, a mask, a cape, and a tricorn hat with a red feather

Links

  • A couple of links responding to the response to the tragic synagogue attack. The attack was obviously antisemitic, and therefore has a political element, and will have understandably sent fear through Jewish communities. However, many establishment figures weaponised it to condemn those protesting the Gaza genocide, the proscription of Palestine action, and the capture of the Gaza Sumud Flotilla in international waters. This is despicable, does the exact thing the attacker did — associate Israel's genocide with innocent Jews. Here is Novara Media with an excellent balanced report, and Jonathan Cook with an article that starts quite provocatively but does come around to making a good point.
  • An interesting Marxist take on LLMs from economist J. W. Mason.
  • On reading by Henrik Karlsson (warning, substack link, for those allergic).

Reading

The Mechanic and the Luddite by Jathan Sadowski.

Playing

I'm into act 3 of Silksong now. I was wondering around aimlessly wondering how to find act 3. I'd never have guessed it required the flea caravan to have made its final stop, as this seemed like comic side-content, not essential to progress in the game. But apparently, it is.