The impossible predicament of the death newts(crookedtimber.org)
548 points by bdr | 179 comments
Crooked Timber blog post by Doug Muir explaining why the rough-skinned newt of the Pacific Northwest is so extraordinarily toxic.
First screen, captured .
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Fuck Nuance (2015)(crookedtimber.org)
25 points by bariumbitmap | 4 comments
Crooked Timber blog post by Kieran Healy introducing his ASA paper draft "Fuck Nuance" arguing against demands for nuance in sociological theory, with reader comments.
Related stories
Flunking my Anthropic interview again(taylor.town)
329 points by surprisetalk | 304 comments
A personal blog post by Taylor recounting applying for Anthropic's Developer Relations role and failing the interview process a second time.
Why Archers Didn't Volley Fire(acoup.blog)
450 points by StefanBatory | 253 comments
A blog essay on A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry explaining why historical archers did not use synchronized volley fire as often depicted in films.
Something weird is happening with LLMs and chess(dynomight.substack.com)
626 points by crescit_eundo | 424 comments
A Dynomight newsletter post examining how well large language models play chess and why results vary strangely across models.
Using LLMs to trace alchemical knowledge and decode 17th century letters(resobscura.substack.com)
160 points by benbreen | 38 comments
A Res Obscura Substack post by historian Benjamin Breen arguing AI labs should fund historical research, with examples of using frontier LLMs to trace alchemy and decode 17th-century letters.
My Friend Aaron(rorz.io)
562 points by sarreph | 152 comments
A short story by Rory McMeekin on his personal blog about a school friend, Aaron, who obsessed over things like World of Warcraft instead of studying.
Clockwork Mechanics, Maintenance, and Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages(jhiblog.org)
15 points by benbreen | 4 comments
JHI Blog essay on how late-medieval writers like Oresme, Mézières, and Froissart used mechanical clocks, which needed constant maintenance, as metaphors for cosmic and political order.