Peter Fraenkel

Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is boring and dangerous opinion: The subtractive bias we're ignoring

Important new literary term just dropped: “semantic ablation”

www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/s...

I wrote a metaphorical thing with silly jokes: blog.podsnap.com/agentic.html

I got Microwave Gourmet in the mid 80s when I was a grad student, and … it’s not that bad. It’s repetitive, like most themed cookbooks, but 40 years ago it was the first to note that μwaves are good for vegetables and risotto. A bit naive about halogenated plastics though.

All about "reactionary centrism" Michael Hobbes joins me to diagnose the pundit class's obsession with scolding the left while the right burns down the house.

Today on Volts: I'm joined by the great @michaelhobbes.bsky.social to discuss "reactionary centrism," an intellectual tendency that's come to dominate US public life. You know the type: would never view themselves as conservative, yet finds voluntary pronoun use vastly more aggravating than fascism.

‘Evidence of the old glazzies,’ grinned Billyboy. ‘Nothing up our sleeves. No magic, droog. A Job for two who are now of job-age. The police .’

Ad for a charcuterie board in the shape of a cow.

It’s like ad tech can read my mind.

tfw you are considering using some random java library and its github repo actually contains an hs_err file they accidentally uploaded 10 years ago.

a brown ink drawing of three hares arranged in a triangle, each sharing an ear with both of the other two hares

three hares (holy trinity) germany, 16th century

Newer AI Coding Assistants Are Failing in Insidious Ways One AI coding assistant power user says the tools are hitting a plateau, and some are even declining. What's causing this unexpected twist in tech?

I think we’ve all noticed aspects of this: spectrum.ieee.org/ai-coding-de...

YouTube video by Simon Roper Did People Notice the Great Vowel Shift?

She mentions him I think on the podcast with @dannybate.bsky.social
This one m.youtube.com/watch?v=i8SD... seems especially up her alley.

Geoff=GeoffreyChaucer, not Lindsey.
And the 1600 jump is definitely the vowel shift.

I can pick up snatches here and there starting ~1000, much of it by the 1300s (thank you Geoff) and it’s crystal clear by 1600. After the first read-through, he did it again with subtitles in modern english and ipa - they start to plausibly match up at maybe 700.

YouTube video by Simon Roper From Old English to Modern American English in One Monologue

This is cool. He reads a passage, starting in 6th century old English and gradually advancing up through the 20th.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=842O...

Slightly diminish a band:

The beetles

The Americans Who Saw All This Coming—but Were Ignored and Maligned Call them the Cassandras: the people—mostly not white and male—who smelled the fascism all over Trump from jump street. Why were they “alarmists,” and how did “anti-alarmism” become cool?

iykyk

newrepublic.com/article/2042...

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) is now in the public domain. I guess I'm kind of biased, but I prefer the "international version" of the movie, which is basically a silent film with a recorded soundtrack of music and sound effects

just saw a billionaire pack all his things in a bindle and start leaving new york city on foot. he turned and looked at me with tears in his eyes and said “maybe one day when this city is safe we’ll return” before walking away

Time-lapse of an ultrasonic cheese cutter at Rodolphe Le Meunier fromager.

After forty years insisting that the prime number twins story in Awakenings was made up, sweet vindication!

has anyone else noticed that food tasted better in the past? it was mushy and easy to eat. and the spoon would come at you like an airplane

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

Enough of 'Just Asking Questions' Platforming extremists is killing democracy—and women

I also declined Diary of a CEO’s invitation to have a “balanced and insightful discussion” about whether feminism “delivered on its promise of liberation for women.”

They ended up titling it, “Has modern feminism betrayed the very women it promised to empower?”

open.substack.com/pub/jessica/...

Much too fancy for cubical ice.

1/100 would mean the line hit 1000, but the y axis only goes to 800.

The Mayor is here at hand.

Tweet from Ella Devi: canvassing for @ZohranKMamdani in the east village today and the actor who plays dr. strugis in young sheldon is in my canvassing group!! Photo of Ella with another canvasser and Wallace Shawn

On the other site, an 18-year-old Zohran canvasser described the legendary Wallace Shawn as "the actor who plays Dr. Sturgis on Young Sheldon" which is honestly adorable

He's mad because it was truthful.

Hebrew calligraphy in dark green stretches in lines across the image. Negative space makes room for a simple representation of an inflatable frog costume with a blue bandana. That shape consists of the English translation of the Hebrew, in a lighter green, and in much smaller text. -- Famously, the Egyptian tyrant causes Egypt to be overrun with frogs because he refuses to free the Hebrew people, but there are additional details that make this a fun one to ponder. For one, the Hebrew says "the frog came up" - ONE frog - even though the rest of the time it says "frogs." So there are a few explanations rabbis have come up with to explain this. One is that a single frog multiplied to create swarms. A more creative explanation is that there was a singular giant frog who traveled and brought destruction. Jewish social media was sharing videos of the Portland Frog protester with the caption, "One Big Frog! One Big Frog!" Of course the frog protesters did multiply, and many were seen in crowds all over the world on "No Kings" Day. This calligraphic work takes the verses addressing the frog plague and combines them to form a simple rendering of the Portland Frog protester. The frog figure itself is made up of the English translations of the Hebrew around it. At the bottom left my signature is in the shape of a lily pad.

"Tzefardea Tzedek" (Frog of Righteousness)

As soon as the Portland Frog became a meme, Jewish social media blew up with jokes about the 2nd Passover plague - tzefarde'a (frogs) - and the Rabbinical commentary around it. I knew I had to make a calligraphy piece encompassing all of it. (more in alt.)