I am building a team to help me with some nerdy wayfinding planning work. I need people who are meticulous, patient, not scared of Excel, willing to learn how to read architectural blueprints, and who find repetitive work meditative. Based in the GMT -9 to GMT +2 timezones. Freelance or 2 year contract depending on location. #getfedihired
UAE Transitions 50% of Government Services to Agentic AI https://www.darkreading.com/cybersecurity-operations/uae-transitions-50-government-services-agentic-ai
I understand that there are people who think we must pass through the Vulnpocalypse to get to Vulnhallah, a time when all code is written by AI then checked by AI and has no vulns that AI can find, while we sit back and feast. But I don't think we can get there from here.
This article does try to warn people that getting COVID-19 is a bad thing, but it only talks about the acute phase and the risk of getting Long COVID:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/19/well/covid-reinfection-risks.html?unlocked_article_code=1.KlE.VxS1.tH_sbPyjbmPg&smid=url-share
However, the paper spends exactly zero words on talking about what I think is the biggest danger: getting a COVID-19 infection -- even a mild one -- raises your risk of almost everything by a significant amount: cardiovascular conditions, cognitive issues, pulmonary conditions, reproductive conditions, gastrointestinal conditions, autoimmune disorders, etc. etc. etc.
The list is LONG:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14TjIlYNwT_2oyHbjSr4hX9IpYHNbPF-eixp8DtkIHv0/edit?gid=1723393104#gid=1723393104
No, really, these PHP vulns are quite serious and you should drop everything and patch. https://www.php.net/index.php
I can’t believe we’re still arguing over whether X is for jerks: https://lexontech.org/i-cant-believe-were-still-arguing-over-whether-x-is-for-jerks
Anyone who would like to know more about her talk, it's posted here: https://meganperram.com/genaifellowship/index.html#workshop2
The best part of the talk was of course the discussion. But she raises a lot of extremely thought-provoking (read: controversial, and based on real students) examples. Good to think about and think how you as an instructor would either head that off or provide alternatives or ignore it...
Just learned there is a goalie in the AHL named Cooper Black. https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/376475/cooper-black
Well, THAT was scary last night.
Let the smaller (14-lb, 6.5 kg) dog Bella into the back yard for a late-night pee before bed.
In a few moments I heard a wild yowling, plus combat noises. I went out on the back porch just in time to see the second raccoon run out from under the porch to join the fight.
Ran out in my stocking feet to scare them off with yelling and threatening posture. Realized that I was not actually well equipped to do so (note to self: you really need shoes for this adventure!).
Bella escaped without significant injuries. Favoring one front leg a bit, no obvious blood. All very scary, though!
Now I have to apologize to the neighbors for causing such a ruckus late at night….
Order your copy at https://aperiodical.net/products/not-to-put-too-fine-a-point-on-it-2nd-edition — shipping later this month!
Dang, I wish I was going to be in Boston for any of the upcoming @ksmallgallery events!
A talk about Alexander Girard?
A yard sale of discounted books?
A talk about Jan Tschichold?
A talk about Anni Albers?
Dang.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117407129021068409
Software programming pioneer Margaret Hamilton has passed away at the age of 90.
NASA’s first hired programmer, lead programmer for the Apollo missions, who managed the entire programming operation which grew to about 100 people.
The Apollo missions encountered how many software bugs? ZERO. Not one.
They did however have an issue because higher-ups failed to approve a safety feature she asked permission to implement, because they assumed “that would never happen, our astronauts are too well trained.” Spoiler: it happened.
i'm genuinely surprised at how well the authors of this history of the ARPAnet strike a balance between careful technical descriptions of hardware and software, useful metaphors for understanding how they work, and the personalities behind them.
every few pages, i learn something genuinely important about computing history which had direct consequences for how i work and live today.
in the computer game history world, most people recognize Will Crowther as 'that guy who created ADVENTURE' (which directly led to the entire text adventure genre).
what no one ever talks about is that before Adventure, Crowther was a chief programmer on the ARPAnet project, and designed the dynamic routing system for packet delivery. the routing software was written entirely in incredibly tight Honeywell 516 assembly, to make intelligent decisions about how to get packets from origin to destination without using a static (deterministic) routing table
a variation of this concept went into BGP, which is the very foundation of internet routing.
it's very telling that the wikipedia entry for Crowther is almost entirely about Adventure, and has almost nothing about his major contributions to the ARPAnet.
Canadian Analysis: Permanent Daylight Saving Harms Sleep and Mental Health https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/10/06/2120211/canadian-analysis-permanent-daylight-saving-harms-sleep-and-mental-health?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon
Lecturer Opportunity in Type Design (Spring Quarter 2027, In-Person, Stanford University)
(Ignore the wrong description in the URL; it really is a teaching type design gig, nothing to do with AI.)
https://mailchi.mp/stanford/how-can-ai-support-language-digitization-and-digital-inclusion-2693082
The crypto industry can drop $30 million+ on a single Senate race. Citation Needed runs on reader support alone. If you think someone should be tracking this stuff, consider a paid subscription: https://www.citationneeded.news/signup/
A sentient slime mold from beyond the galaxy meets the world of ancient Pompeii. That's the premise of my new novel A WALL IS ALSO A ROAD. If you want to know more about the bonkers research that went into my worldbuilding in this book, here's my tale ... with helpful captions and illustrations! The book comes out on Tuesday 10/6.
A while ago I had the idea to basically make an "open workbook", a website that would have all the notes and experience I had gained as a type engineer, to provide a consolidated reference for those trying to learn to do what I do.
Up until recently I still had plans to make it, but I realized that if I had done that as planned in ~2023, instead of training young designers, I mostly would have just wound up training various LLMs how to do my job, which is a sad realization.
Now it feels like if you want to share a part of your experience with the internet, you're not sharing it with people directly, but to LLM companies that sell it back to users, just with your name scratched out and "Sam Altman" written over it.
I want to pay it forward, but not to Altman et al
RFK Jr. says AI backs his anti-vaccine views. We checked—it doesn't.
AI is far from a perfect resource. But it seems to hallucinate less than Kennedy.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/09/rfk-jr-says-ai-backs-his-anti-vaccine-views-we-checked-it-doesnt/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
The 'boring-expansion' set of proposals that I made back in 2022, with the help of Google Fonts and industry colleagues, have finally become part of the new ISO Open Font Format 5th edition international font format standard. It _only_ took four years...
The proposals include the `avar` version 2 table for more expressive variable font designspaces, variable-composites, as well as fonts with more than 65 thousand glyphs.
PDF can be downloaded for free, albeit after a checkout process and watermarked to the individual.