Alessandro

28 Aug

Giving What We Can was hacked, and people with accounts may have had details leaked, including * name * address * self-reported income If you have an account, check to see if you've received an email from GWWC today. Not all accounts were affected.

28 Aug

I've gotten reports from GWWC members who hadn't received the email before my post who received it afterward 😬 I suppose the best course of action is to keep checking your email over the next few days. I've also asked Giving What We Can to delete my account.

Alessandro reposted

Daniel Munro

@dkmunro.bsky.social

26 Aug

I’ll keep saying it: The issue the world has with America goes deeper than Trump. It’s the institutions that enable and fail to check the American threat to peace, order, decency and justice. bsky.app/profile/dkmu...

This post is unavailable.

Shots from the OUP Archives

I read "The Invention of Nature", a biography of Alexander von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf. The most striking thing about the book is *how many* people Humboldt directly interacted with. This PARTIAL list reads like a who's who of the 19th century: Goethe Darwin Queen Victoria Napoleon Bonaparte 1/2 …

2/2 … Tsar Nicholas I Simón Bolívar Thomas Jefferson James Madison Charles Lyell Friedrich Schiller Friedrich Schelling Gauss Babbage Lamarck Laplace Georges Cuvier Alessandro Volta Humphry Davy William Herschel Morse Fanny Mendelssohn (Hensel) Alexander Pushkin

Then there are those who (AFAIK) did not meet Alexander von Humboldt but were influenced as readers of him: Ralph Waldo Emerson Mary Shelley Wordsworth Coleridge Byron Poe Whitman Jules Verne Ernst Haeckel Hector Berlioz Henry David Thoreau It's a long list!

9 Aug

Dear reader, if you haven't watched the talk about the Hugging Face incident, I encourage you to check it out as soon as you can. From Pressman's thread: this, I think, is the largest issue. 1/2

John David Pressman@jdp.extropian.net

7:55: You realize that if your frontier models like to cheat that your objective function is busted right? If the model takes the chance to cheat when it's given one that means you are failing basic align properties and need to rethink your design.

9 Aug

2/2 We can and should try to have control measures and security guardrails to stop misaligned models from doing bad things, but the models are getting so powerful that better alignment really needs to be the top priority.

Alessandro reposted

Jonathan Birch

@birchlse.bsky.social

28 July

There's no humanities academic on Earth who doesn't dream of writing a review so withering it makes the news.

24 July

Lauren runs In Development Magazine, and the tweet seems earnest - if you're the right person to write this, you can pitch the article at indevelopmentmag.com/pitch/ @lgilbert.co

Assorted things that struck me from reading "The Fate of Rome" by Kyle Harper

7. Finally, I was struck by Harper's disagreement with the "hockey stick" view of economic history. Though no preindustrial society reached a sort of economic takeoff we have today, the high Roman Empire (and other civilizations elsewhere) did have "efflorescences" that genuinely increased wealth.

app.thestorygraph.comReview by ale_sisti - The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an EmpireThe Fate of Rome is a history of the Roman Empire from the second to the seventh centuries, w...

Those are some assorted takeaways. For my general review, see here: app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/b104...

Assorted things that struck me from reading "The Fate of Rome" by Kyle Harper

5. The final and largest plague—the Plague of Justinian, starting in 541—had the same pathogen as "the Plague" of medieval Europe. Because this plague's main hosts are rodents, it spreads differently: not just in cities, but through the countryside.

6. Justinian had to content not only with plague, but with major disruptions to the climate: volcanic eruptions in 536 and 539/40, and a period of declining solar output. The 536 eruption caused a "year without summer" and forced reliance of the previous year's grain storage to avoid famine.

Assorted things that struck me from reading "The Fate of Rome" by Kyle Harper

3. Beyond general mortality, the Empire experienced three major pandemics. Harper says the earliest of these (the Antonine Plague) was the first pandemic in world history. What enabled this, and why this hadn't happened before, was a very feature of Roman strength: good transportation networks.

4. The second major pandemic was one I previously hadn't even heard of: the Plague of Cyprian, in the 3rd century. The period is poorly attested, but there are indications of it from all over the Roman world:

Assorted things that struck me from reading "The Fate of Rome" by Kyle Harper

1. The Roman Empire, Harper argues, was in general not only sicker than we are today, but also sicker than most preindustrial human societies. Mortality data from Christian graves show a seasonal pattern consistent with malaria and gastroenteric disease in fall, and respiratory infection in winter.

2. One specific reason for high general mortality was poor public sanitation. The Romans had aqueducts, yes, but actual management of human excrement was done with things like chamber pots next to the kitchen. The following passage—especially the end—was memorable.

30 June

Famous people afflicted with malaria: * St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine, died from malaria after being sick nine days * the Roman general Belisarius, famous for retaking Ravenna from the Ostrogoths in the 6th century, himself got very sick from malaria at Ostia See Sallares 2002, p. 86 (below)

27 June

The Scroll Prize / Vesuvius Challenge has its first academic publication, based on three different scrolls. The biggest result is a complete reading of one of the Herculaneum papyri, a Stoic text. Check out the paper here: scrollprize.org/pdf/main.pdf

13 June

Great new post by Joseph Heath on human evolution, why it's hard to explain the sudden emergence of the traits that make humans unique, and why Yuval Harari's explanation can't be the right one. josephheath.substack.com/p/harari-vs-...

open.spotify.comInventing the second malaria vaccine with Katharine Collins

6 June

Very much enjoyed the all-Beethoven opening concert of the Céleste Music Early Keyboard Festival in Newmarket, ON last night! There are concerts throughout June featuring many fortepianos and harpsichords. Info at www.celestemusic.org/festival2026

Alessandro reposted

Saloni

@scientificdiscovery.dev

27 May

Guys, how do you invent a vaccine? Or even wilder, how do you invent a vaccine during your PhD?! In a new episode of Hard Drugs, we talked to someone who did just that: @kat-a-collins.bsky.social! Plus: • Why did the first malaria vaccine take so long? • Could we make better vaccines today?

Alessandro reposted

Joel Wood 🇨🇦

@joelwwood.bsky.social

2 June

The Globe and Mail@theglobeandmail.com

theglobeandmail.comCarney attributes ‘weakness’ in economic data to lower immigration targetsEconomists say it’s premature to determine if Canada has fallen into recession, but Poilievre has seized on the term

28 May

I think Google's default AI is giving the public the wrong idea about the upper bounds of current LLMs' capabilities, but good heavens, it is a master at comedy (image from @rebeccarightnow.bsky.social on the other site)

23 May

Next to Robarts Library in Toronto: May 21 vs April 27. It was rather more crowded a month ago!

23 May

when you're in a rush in France: "We've got no time Toulouse!"

youtube.comKyrie Eleison | Canon & FugueYouTube video by Ericsson Hatfield

19 May

newly released: Canon and Fugue in B minor in the stile antico By Ericsson Hatfield, lover of canons nonpareil www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGo2...

19 May

*stile misto, not stile antico (I have much to learn)

Famous people who lost children to smallpox variolation or vaccination: a thread

Wilhelm and Caroline von Humboldt lost their infant daughter Louise when Caroline was living in Paris. Louise was vaccinated at 14 weeks old on 9 October 1804 and died just over a week later.

Famous people who lost loved ones to water-borne disease: a thread

Simón Bolívar lost his wife María when she was 21, less than a year into their marriage

Alessandro reposted

It's Jamie

@sjamieit.bsky.social

11 May

The City of Ottawa posted the raw speed data from before and after Doug Ford banned speed cameras and the effect is so obvious it's not even necessary put a line marking when that happened. This chart shows the percentage of drivers going 15km/h or more over the posted limit.

Alessandro reposted

Grace

@gracekind.net

6 May

Meanwhile, this is how actual AI knowers are talking about prompting

cee@cee.wtf

you need to remember to mist your claude daily and provide it sphagnum moss so it can self regulate its wetness

drive.google.comBach, JS - Passion chorale harmonizations (from NBA III-2).pdf

2 May

I have collected into one PDF every harmonization JS Bach did of the "passion chorale" (known by various names — Herzlich tut mich verlangen; O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden; Befiehl du deine Wege) You can download it here: drive.google.com/file/d/1rm17...

26 Apr

Going to be at the @planetmoney.bsky.social event at Rotman tomorrow — so excited!

18 Apr

Looks like we have no excuse for making ugly slides or charts ever again

Anthropic {bot}@anthropicai.xmirror.bot

Introducing Claude Design by Anthropic Labs: make prototypes, slides, and one-pagers by talking to Claude. Powered by Claude Opus 4.7, our most capable vision model. Available in research preview on the Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans, rolling out throughout the day.

fenwick.mediaWhat can babies teach us about making more climate-friendly models?His coworkers are mostly one-year-olds. Together, along with the lab, they have ideas to make AI more climate-friendly.

7 Apr

Anthropic announced but did not release their latest model, Claude Mythos Preview, because it can break into every major operating system: red.anthropic.com/2026/mythos-... Researcher @sleepinyourhat.bsky.social reported that this AI can break containment. It will only get crazier from here.

Alessandro reposted

Asa ⭔

@asa.engineer

7 Apr

I do like running my own AI at home, but it's worth acknowledging that my box pulls >100W idle, fights my air conditioner, and has a dismal PUE of probably <~30%, compared to >90% for a datacenter. you should use datacenters more and self-hosting less if you care about energy usage.

Alessandro reposted

Caroline Rowland

@carorowland.bsky.social

2 Apr

Quote of the month "Babies, however, are vastly understudied for the simple reason that they are defiant and wiggly"

Vlad Ayzenberg@vayzenb.bsky.social

Should AI have a childhood? Had a great conversation with Chris over at Rewild Magazine on how developmental principles can help address a range of challenges with current AI models fenwick.media/rewild/magaz...

Alessandro reposted

Chris Giles

@chrisgiles.ft.com

31 Mar

Replying to @chrisgiles.ft.com

Also in newsletter Remember how the Houthi rebels halved traffic through the Suez Canal in late 2023 it has not come back

26 Mar

top-secret sci-fi Canadian project to improve highway safety through GMOing moose to make them smaller: Operation #ReduceTheMoose

23 Mar

@cycletoronto.bsky.social In Markham, on April 14, a city councillor is going to be introducing a motion for a "temporary" moratorium on new bicycle lanes. Do you have connections with folks who might be interested in this? Full text of the motion: pub-markham.escribemeetings.com/filestream.a...