Michael Miener

I am at Vol 4 of Balle, which is entirely mesmerizing

Your best photo portrait will be taken not while you are smiling but when you are quiet a moment after you have been laughing. Use a photographer who makes you laugh.

For more advice see my book Excellent Advice for Living amzn.to/3mQL4c4 #excellentadvice

Der Drops ist bereits gelutscht. Den technologischen Vorsprung, den China sich sehr transparent und öffentlich erarbeitet hat, wird DE nicht wieder einholen. Und global interessiert niemanden, was die deutsche Automobilwirtschaft in 2035 tut oder lässt... Pfeifen im Walde

Olga Tokarczuk über die Frage, wie man das Chaos zu einem Roman „buttert“

Rettung ist nah! Olga Tokarczuk erklärt, wie man „das Chaos zu einem Roman BUTTERT“!

Image shows cover of Julia Blackburn's "Remedies" booklet from Hazel Press (2025): The image below the title is taken from a "D" initial: A nun feeding a leper in bed. The image is by an unknown Swiss artist from the late 13th century.

Now look what a beauty just arrived on my desk. Julia Blackburn's "Remedies" from Hazel Press. It is based on and inspired by the Old English "Bald's Leechbook" (British Library Royal 12 D. xvii). Thank you @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk for shipping this!

When Using AI, Users Fall for the Dunning-Kruger Trap in Reverse - Neuroscience News A new study reveals that when interacting with AI tools like ChatGPT, everyone—regardless of skill level—overestimates their performance.

"All those barely literate rubes using ChatGPT are merely being played like a fiddle by the corporations, and producing worthless slop. Only I, with my towering intellect, have figured out how to make it generate greatness." —every GenAI-using asshole out there

A person sits in an armchair with three cats on her lap, two on the arm of the chair and a sixth on the back of the chair

My leg is starting to cramp, so things are about to get dramatic in this armchair

Number of maternal deaths Estimated annual number of women who die from maternal conditions.

Explore data on the number of maternal deaths, country by country: ourworldindata.org/grapher/numb...

Fortunately, the world has made continuous progress, and such tragic deaths have become much rarer, as the chart shows. The WHO has published data since 1985. Since then, the number of maternal deaths has more than halved.

(This Data Insight was written by @maxroser.bsky.social.)

The global number of maternal deaths has more than halved. Line chart titled "Estimated annual number of women who die from maternal conditions," showing a steady decline in estimated annual maternal deaths worldwide from about 625,000 in 1985 to about 260,000 in 2023, with a small uptick around 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic before falling again. Data source: World Health Organization - Global Health Observatory (2025). Chart licensed CC BY to Our World in Data.

Maternal deaths have more than halved in the last forty years

"Bro!"
Beowulf: A New Translation, 2020
Maria Dahvana Headley 🇺🇸

Trade-off. I think the land in that area was used for intensive lignite mining before, so it is not a high‐fertility agricultural region anymore. The original fertile topsoil had been lost long ago.

"VW Group China’s operating profits (€ -> home to Germany, essentially) peaked in 2014. That year, VW Group China sold 3.68M vehicles—more than eight times BYD's estimated sales.

A decade later, BYD sold 3.84 million vehicles in China, surpassing VW Group China’s sales by more than 900,000 units."

I have a very bad feeling about this...

It’s inconvenient to have a publicly edited fact checker if you want to rewrite the past using Grok. #wikipedia #ai

Well yes, he started off in some straightforward way, but boy is this a quirky one.

I Test Drove a Flying Car. Get Ready, They’re Here. Dan Neil takes a test flight of the Pivotal BlackFly, a series-produced electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle made for consumers

No they are not here. Read the story & judge for yourself. Flying cars used to be things that could drive on roads & fly. Now they are simply electric helicopters on the very edge of being able to fly people due to the physics of flight and today's known battery tech. www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...

😜

Don’t define yourself by your opinions, because then you can’t change your mind. Define yourself by your values.

For more advice see my book Excellent Advice for Living amzn.to/3mQL4c4 #excellentadvice

What do #runologists do when not contemplating the 'mystery' of #runic inscriptions? They go cow-spotting...

"Trade paperback" is a euphemism. We should call them "inflated paperbacks" or "HCs deprived by their HC", but they are ugly in every way.

Your best teacher is your last mistake.

For more advice see my book Excellent Advice for Living amzn.to/3mQL4c4 #excellentadvice

5 million of them are about research

The first folio of the heroic epic poem Beowulf, written primarily in the West Saxon dialect of Old English. Part of the Cotton MS Vitellius A XV manuscript currently located within the British Library. This is a digital photographic copy of the folio. Text shown according to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43521/beowulf-old-english-version: WE GARDE na in geardagum, þeodcyninga, [129] þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. Then the feast was found, he asked for it, grew under the clouds, the gods, until each of those sitting around him heard the sound of the horn, gomban gyldan. That was a good king. After that, he was remembered, walking in the fields, the good one sent to the king; the fire on the king who had long been dead. His life, the ruler of the people, the lord of the world, was taken away; Beowulf was quick to spring forth, Scyld's son, into the lands of the dead. Thus shall men go forth to good deeds, from pious gifts to their fathers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf#/media/File:Beowulf_Cotton_MS_Vitellius_A_XV_f._132r.jpg

How Close Did We Come to Losing Beowulf Forever?

Robert Bartlett on a Vital Work of the Western Canon That Barely Survived Multiple Disasters

lithub.com/how-close-di...

Beowulf at PG:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subje...

#books #literature #old_manuscripts

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Turing Test YouTube video by The Royal Society

Alan Kay (invented personal computers) on AI. We love theater as system 1 (Kahneman) fires and fools, but we know it's not real due to system 2, logical reasoning. Exposed to LLMs sys 1 fires wildly but we have no sys 2 understanding of it to control our love of it. www.youtube.com/live/GmnBTCK...

This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!

Which is surprising as their diags used to be pretty good.... infinite interns at work maybe?

The abstract sounds like a prank. Are these folks serious? How is the journal impact factor a measure of quality? It has a recursive effect & journals reinforce themselves & the factor helps determine its own significance. So stuff is churned out faster, ok, but that in itself is not productivity.