The random blitherings of an astronomer
Accusing the BBC of bias is a classic knee-jerk response that generally indicates the commenter is either a) a moron or b) politically extreme. At least, those saying that the BBC is hugely right-wing because it does or doesn't cover story X, Y, Z, are basically equalled by those saying that the BBC is hugely left -wing because it does or doesn't cover story X, Y, Z. It's not at all unusual to see…
Today, I want to look at how and why UX seems to be so routinely awful in our daily digital lives, and what this has in common with broken toasters and racism. These ideas have been floating around in my head for quite a while. The need to finally write them down was triggered when I commented on this thread , but here I want to give a more developed version. What is UX and how is it so bad ? I…
I seem to have a habit of reviewing Christopher Nolan movies so I can hardly not cover The Odyssey . I'll keep this one spoiler-free. In some ways this is essentially Project Hail Mary but in space. That is, it's definitely excellent – outstanding, even – but I don't think it's going to "change cinema forever" or anything as hyperbolic as many reviews make out. Or perhaps, Dune . It's certainly a…
I try to avoid reading polemics because I don't see the point of them. I see the need to write them from time to time, but reading them is the cynical equivalent of mental masturbation. Sure, wallow in self-pity if that's your thing, but I'll stick to actual porn like a normal person, thanks. Ahem. Anyway, this is not to say I don't occasionally read things that sound more polemical, if only as a…
We've all seen that services tend to get worse over time. You sign up to a new streaming service and it tends to get more and more expensive and content gets worse, or good content gets rarer. Or you try out a restaurant and it's great at first but becomes more and more mundane. Some of this is almost certainly due to rising expectations and flawed memory. When you find something wonderful and…
It's time to resume my extensive mythology review series with another outing from Thames & Hudson. This one, simply called The Slavic Myths (authors Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak), isn't part of their "Myths That Shape The Way We Think" series that first got me hooked on T&H, though it's pretty close. It doesn't quite examine how the myths have influenced our modern-day thinking, but it…
Welcome back to my take on David Mitchell's Unruly . Last time I looked at Mitchell's non-kingly words of wisdom (and a few parts which were questionable) on a basically random collection of topics. This time it'll be much more focused on the main subject of what David Mitchell thinks made for a successful medieval monarch. This is going to be very medieval-centric; if you want to draw out what's…
David Mitchell's Unruly : A History of England's Kings and Queens has been on my "I'd quite like to read that" list for some time. Finally, mission accomplished. As the popular comedian I most strongly identify with, this one was an obvious choice. Incidentally, should you prefer to hear from the man himself without reading the whole book, he gave a nice interview about in on History Hit, which is…
WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT ? SERIOUSLY ? WHEN YOU GET RIGHT DOWN TO IT ? – Death, Soul Music (Terry Pratchett) That's the scale of the problem we're facing when dealing with the issue of whether computers can think. Forget the robot uprising crap, we're talking full-on "meaning of life stuff" here. Allow me to explain. As I've said previously , I've made peace with the idea that we'll probably never get…
I'm still finding it hard to get my head around the fact that there are people who think modern life is too easy . I mean, I just don't get it. At all. Sure, navigation is easier because you can outsource that to Google Maps, and you can order takeaways online, yes... and that's what's shutting down your critical thinking skills ? You don't have five hundred thousand other things demanding your…
I've pointed out many times that what seems rational is constantly evolving as evidence changes. If you don't notice things disappearing over the horizon gradually, or the shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse, then a flat Earth is an entirely sensible thing to believe in. A contrary view from comes from the New Atheist crowd, who are apt to insist that all of humanity's history…
I continue to be impressed enough by my reMarkable tablet that I remain subscribed to their newsletter, although not so much that I have any intention of upgrading until mine breaks. I rarely do more than glance at newsletters unless there's something especially interesting, and this "newsletter fatigue" is probably something the good people at reMarkable want to think about a bit more carefully.…
Welcome back to my review-summary of John Haywood's The Making Of The Middle Ages. Last time we looked at the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, as one does. In this concluding part, we need to look at what happened to a fragmented (and sometimes not so fragmented) Europe in the aftermath of its first superstate, especially Britain because it's my blog and I can if I want to. I'll finish with a…
I picked up John Haywood's The Making Of The Middle Ages : An Atlas of Europe as a treat to myself for no particular reason at all. I'm pleased to say that once again, Thames & Hudson do not disappoint. Physically, this is an exceptional product of thick paper, outstanding print quality, more than enough maps that the "Atlas" subtitle is fully earned, and accompanied by insightful, analytical text…
Back in the days when AI development meant working towards something like an artificial human, I had three rules to bear in mind when reading most popular articles on the subject : AI does not yet have the the same kind of understanding as human intelligence. There is no guarantee rule 1 will always hold true. It is not necessary to violate rule 1 for AI to have a massive impact, positive or…
Welcome back to the concluding part of my review-summary of Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter . In part one I covered how Galileo was a prodigious polymath, something which often gets lost in the simplified "he was imprisoned for teaching that the Sun goes around the Earth" version of events. I also looked briefly at Galileo as a man, ending with how for him, the idea of a conflict between natural…
There was only one trial of Galileo, although legends often speak of two... There was only one trial of Galileo, and yet it seems there were a thousand – the suppression of science by religion, the defence of individualism against authority, the clash between revolutionary and establishment, the challenge of radical new discoveries to ancient beliefs, the struggle against intolerance for freedom…
In the midst of reading Neil Price's Phd thesis-book The Viking Way , I happened to stumble upon this 2024 movie by someone I've never heard of. I'm going to review this one for no particular reason, and there's every possibility this will be among the least consequential things I ever write. Even so, fair warning : this review will contain detailed spoilers. There's just no way I can go on the…
Today, an excellent piece of investigative journalism from The New Yorker . Anyone remember those brief few days in 2023 when Sam Altman was removed from the board of OpenAI ? Of course you do. But now, more than two years later, we finally get an inside look into what the hell that was all about. Months of investigations have revealed in extreme detail just what was going on behind closed doors.…
Today's post resumes my unusual habit of amateur epistemology. I've explored the definition of understanding many times , concluding that it's the knowledge of how things connect and interrelate. The more we understand something, the better we can predict how it behaves in novel situations. Fair enough as far as it goes, but I've always found the main issue with this is what happens when we reach…
This book has been sat on my shelf for quite some time. A friend got it for me for Christmas and I just plain forgot about it. I'll skip to the chase : this is the most 6/10 book that ever did 6/10. It is the very epitome of 6/10. If there was a Platonic form for 6/10, this book would be it. It isn't bad exactly. But it isn't good either. It has enough in there to keep it interesting, but for a…
What makes a puzzle annoying ? When is solving a problem rewarding, and when is finding out the answer just frustrating ? If we could answer this, we might get a long way towards making the world a happier place. Getting people to actually enjoy solving problems, rather than being pissed off at their opponents for discovering a flaw in their arguments, would surely benefit political discourse…
Today, a couple of contrarian pieces claiming that maybe LLMs do think and reason after all. That is, not in a namby-pamby, "it's just something similar enough to thinking that we might as well call it that" sort of way. This is perfectly reasonable. I stand by that myself . To get hung up on saying "they're not really thinking" every time someone casually uses this instead of "processing data" is…
Today, a short look at a BBC article claiming that the modern world is making everything too easy. Yes, really. It is, of course, all about the age-old argument as to whether making things easier makes us stupider. There's a fair point to be made for "use it for lose it", but the question should really be about when and whether skill atrophy actually matters. There's no point worrying that your…
Here's a very nice long read from the Guardian about trying to understand what's really going on inside our heads. Recently I concluded that any attempt to understand what consciousness actually is is likely hopeless. Trying to understand what we mean by experience when literally all we have access to is experience is inevitably circular. But the effort itself isn't fruitless. We can all of us…