![William Jones was born in London; his father William Jones (1675–1749) was a mathematician from Anglesey in Wales, noted for introducing the use of the symbol π. The young William Jones was a linguistic prodigy, who in addition to his native languages English and Welsh,[3] learned Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew and the basics of Chinese writing at an early age.[4] By the end of his life, he knew eight languages with critical thoroughness.[5]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sxttw4f3ket2uyrrtc5ou4n2/bafkreicbwznkajdcsexfdcnzvef3cwaruzvzsf6q775dic3x4kfobbseoi)
Pi(e) day pi(e) facts:
The guy introduced the Greek letter for pi was the father of the guy who discovered proto-Indo-European (PIE)
I usually don't link to FastCo on principle, but this piece is a worthwhile exception (and I recognize the writer's name--also writes for LeadDev)
I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out:
www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...
When I give talks about the exploitation of GLAM by the AI industry I’m always asked “how can we defend ourselves from bots scraping our metadata?” I have no idea. That’s a question for an engineer. What I can and do say is that we shouldn’t be supporting this industry in the first place.
When AI not only deletes without confirming (cf. Replit) but installs more AI, because OpenClaw "is designed to take the initiative on your behalf based on what it knows about your life and its understanding of what you want done," and then ... shares the keys
krebsonsecurity.com/2026/03/how-...
When Duolingo let me down, I went back to the old ways: aftermath.site/duolingo-ai-la...
What's so viscerally upsetting about this is that making up words and attributing them to real writers, alive or not, is essentially making and selling deepfakes of the writers. It's incredibly violating.
Mystery Solved! Turns out it is "Webinar.tv" whose disgusting and unethical business model is: register for a zoom call under a fake name and email address, record it without consent and put it on a public website with genAI summary and everyone's names and faces and then charge for access. WTAF.
If a tester of a new website (gratis) would be helpful at some future point, feel free to ping. Their current site is indistinguishable on the front end from what I remember of their initial web presence, 1990s
Ah, nice! And thank you for helping them make a new website--that would be a fine thing
p.s. I don't want one particularly--only intrigued by variants
Is this similar to or distinct from their LF11? (Something in my brain got pinged by the idea of physical loom variants, clearly)
How cool! Where did you obtain/find a cardboard one? Kliot is lacis.com, and various sellers show an oak version
_Hyperion_ (which I taught to undergrads) was the last good thing, I think. See also www.npr.org/2011/07/28/1... and perhaps (grain/salt) www.reddit.com/r/behindtheb...
Education isn’t busy work, just like lifting weights in the gym isn’t about getting weights from point A to point B. Education is about making you a better, more thoughtful human being who appreciates people, beauty, and science.
None of these guys have ever appreciated anything but money.
Neigh
(see thread)
Is it possible to reuse filament? (Real q--I've no clue)
The headline does not convey how completely batshit this story is. The Archive Today (archive.ph etc) admin weaponized the site's captcha to attack a blogger who wrote about them and *altered archived screenshots* as part of the attack.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
@charity.wtf on taking a step back to consider systems and people's legacy decisions, not only software observability: charitydotwtf.substack.com/p/first-i-wr...
Some leaders' earnest embrace of AI is clearer to me now, in that they _used_ to be technical (and are now insecure/hiding)
When brands (I mean TikTok) are run by machines, comma,
Alpha School is also keeping video recordings of students in an a Google Drive anyone with the link can access. www.404media.co/students-are...
I haven't watched the show but am enjoying some of the discourse that's emerged around it
As someone who was glad to work in an archive for some years, I think "What if it doesn't belong in a museum" is a question we should (nonetheless) ask more often
I wrote up the talk I gave at CESTA a couple weeks ago, on how we're overdue on changing the narrative about what digital humanities prepares students for. It's not fallback jobs in tech, it's getting involved in your community in moments of crisis. And craft helps build those skills. #DHmakes
The spreadsheet on this clay tablet, which is almost 4,000 years old, is organised into columns for furrowed area, grain produced, land not sown, and the field’s name.
The first field is called “Of the soldiers who stood in for their fathers”.
It’s ancient Excel, but I find that incredibly moving
Read the opening page of Backyard Alchemy by J.D. Ho (and the opening essay on the book’s page!): riverriverbooks.org/store/-Preor... 📚💙🎉
If people don't love it enough e.g. to add ep summaries on Wikipedia, it's tough to get more people interested, given that the studio's scheduling decision seems backed by falling ratings, not whim or scandal. Good luck (truly)
Job openings rate just reached its lowest level since spring 2020.
Federal judge has ordered the release of Liam Ramos (the bunny hat boy) and his father. A brief and rather remarkable order. Clearly written to be shared widely, so please do. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
