Sarah O’Connor in the FT – Why We Have The Calendar All Wrong
The Romans are generally blamed for lumbering us with the notion that January marks the beginning of the year, and therefore the moment to turn a new leaf. But they didn’t start that way: under the original Roman calendar, the year began in March (this is why September, October, November and December are named after Roman numbers seven, eight, nine and ten). January and February didn’t even have names; they were just a nondescript winter period.
… That still leaves the question of when, precisely, my psychological new year should begin.
Definitely something I’ve been mulling over more this year, possibly because Christmas and Easter are blurring into the same capitalist soup of uncycles and I feel the need to reinvent every fucking thing these days.
Pete Brown posts about cancelling his Amazon stuff. As he says about the almost mundanity of it all:
“I had barely been using any of their service for well over a year, so do any of these steps even matter? Probably not.”
But I love the little moments in blogs like this. Tiny steps that reflect bigger decisions, and that remind people that these things are possible. Not this modern plague of “hey, an amazing and unique thing just happened to me!”, but a celebration of the easily-overlooked.
It’s where the small fixes idea comes from – that by shining a light on these things, they’re a good and normal thing to do.
Three clues that your LLM may be poisoned with a sleeper-agent back door.
I really haven’t delved into LLMs much, but articles like this – reading like actual modern-day cyberpunk sci-fi – have me more interested as people unpick the complex properties of them.
FT, free – Gospel of Lead is a great read about the trials and relationships behind a couple investigating a possible Biblical artifact. From the origins of religions to the frailty of individuals.
A look at the Israeli military “strategy” behind the seemingly-continuous string of wars in the region.
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