Conor Houghton

This year for Lent I am giving up ultraprocessed food and giving a fuck. I anticipate that by Easter I will be basically immortal and also in prison.

It seems the same translator did the Vicar of Wakefield!

"Lights all askew in the heavens. Men of science more or less agog over results of eclipse observations. Einstein theory triumphs. Stars not where they seemed or were calculated to be, but nobody need worry."

another favourite scientific headline, following confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity by observations of the 1919 solar eclipse. "Stars not where they seemed or were calculated to be, but nobody need worry" is a beautiful sentiment. i would have that on a t-shirt

It's almost like they don't really believe in this God they so often mention and so require the help of mammon where fear and love of the creator should suffice.

I don't get it; isn't that what Catholics already do when they marry in the church?

These people should fund me to visit cities on their behalf, I have a near limitless capacity for enjoyment and an expertise in turning the slightest incident into anecdote. I would come with them to parties and tell stories of foreign adventure on their behalf, under their patronage as it were.

So in the Autumn Olympics these games would share a fortnight with croquet and road bowling.

It wouldn't be played internationally, instead different countries would be asked to bring their local championships, whatever that is, to a single venue for all to watch and become instant experts on.

I wish oh wish there was an autumn Olympics which was just for sport that aren't internationally popular enough for the other two Olympics, sports only played in one or two countries, or maybe just a region, petanque, hurling, buzkashi, kabaddi.

Some notes on the subjunctive in Irish:
open.substack.com/pub/anabhain...

Roses are red
Is gorm é an bláth
There no "yes" in Irish
Ach is féidir “I do” a rá.

#IrishValentine

Roses are Red
This world is new
If you were an LLM
I'd attribute agency to you

#aivalentines

Curious how language can emerge within swarms of robots? 🤖🗨️🤖 Then join our "Swarm Robotics for Language Evolution" workshop at @evolangconf.bsky.social, where you'll get to explore this topic through a live-coding demo and hands-on simulations. More info and signup here: romamile.com/SwarmLangEme...

Completely disagree! We need more time on the blank page, less time moving past it; more time frozen in your chair lost in thought, more time feeling the gears move and stop, more time walking in hope of inspiration, more time at the black board; less time worrying the page is still blank!

No cars; that'd be the ideal.

Oh this is splendid. Reminds me of a famous incident from when I was at university when the union events organiser was told to order £500 of smoked salmon for a party. Instead he ordered 500lbs. It had to be delivered in a truck. Everyone ate salmon for weeks

They came to our countries and stole stuff and left people starving, we come to theirs to look after sick people, teach and make delicious food and they panic and talk nonsense about British values.

In 2000 it was already possible to submit to Physical Review by sending them the arXiv number. It is taking biology so long to catch up.

On spring evenings on this foreign soil, when the sun mixing with rain reminds me of home, I ache for a bus marked "an lár" and the sight of a grey crow.

Also, should say, some of his political stuff was useful and correct; which makes the "Thanks Jeff for buying me a dish drier" bit all the harder to take.

I mean he is owed some respect for his absolute emphasis on child language learning as a sort of miracle and a challenge to easy descriptions of language and language learning, but the tower of nonsense and dogma on top . . .

Get that absolutely, but I also enjoy Hinton's take down: "we were told to expect a secret theoretical language of thought and now machines are using language it turns out that language is, like English".

There is a little part of me that thinks "how dare you end up looking like an idiot because of Epstein instead of because the theoretical possibility of recursion is so clearly not the defining feature of language"; as if your enemy died of syphilis before the morning of your dual.

_Giovanni's Room_ is such an incredible book, romantic, intense, tragic and written with such elegance and power. I wish I wasn't so late coming to James Baldwin; if you've made the same mistake rectify it now!

Did you see _Left handed girl_? It's wonderful, I think even right handed people like it.

I am a fan of both Maggie O'Farrell and the great Paul M, I am also prone to weeping the cinema so it was a massive dilemma!

I am too scared of the emotions to go!

I see from UKRI that the UK government has spotted the massive open goal but decided to swap the ball for a dime bar and a couple of yokes.

Melania sounds like the official veterinary term, Trump what they call it in the villages.

The Irish Language Forum has, impressively, cleared up my confusion regarding these words.