Kevin Clark

A picture of a very old BBC Microcomputer sporting a keyboard with markings in Linear B.

BBC Model Linear B

Cool performances BEFORE I get to NYC later this month, and cool performances AFTER I leave. Why can't everyone magically know my travel schedule and book shows accordingly.

In the Void Behind My Deaths by Effie Seiberg In my first death I died alone, pierced through the belly with a velociraptor talon. I bled out before I felt much of anything, floating into a black void. It was quiet and and peaceful and still, …

It's a new story day! "In the Void Behind My Deaths" is free to read at @factorfourmagazine.com

See what happens between death and rebirth...and what it means for the whole universe

share.google/SYcRA61Zkrz7...

(parenthetically, there are a ton of tools in the philosophy of language that have hidden inside them that same assumption that where there's smoke there's fire, so be careful to excavate the assumptions inside your tools before you go too far down the path)

There's still a lot of thinking to do about how these things impact people, individually and globally, but stop trying to figure out the sneaky new kind of fire that's making it all happen. It's just smoke. No fire. Focus on the thing for what it is.

And that can take a lot of time, arguing how an LLM is a new kind of psuedo-mind, or gets to be personified for some reason, or should count as having some brand new kind of thought. But no. It's not any of those things. It's just a smoke machine.

But LLMs make smoke without fire. They're not thinking minds at all. And it is in fact wild that we can have all of this smoke without any fire. The mistake I see is people going "okay, this is a cool new source of smoke. There must some cool new kind of fire that made it."

There's a mistake people make with understanding what LLMs mean that I've been thinking about. We're used to believe that "where there's smoke there's fire." That is to say that the existence of writing, or code, implies that there was a thinking mind out there somewhere.

Love how this is wrong in like 4 discrete ways

I love this fact.

The Feed that SB Nation is launching seems really smart. Also great to see an internet victory lap for @losowsky.com , an old magazine collaborator who was the entire target audience for my reference to I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue in an American magazine. Congrats, sir.

Everyone is celebrating him for his (obviously wonderful) songs but I am also celebrating him for releasing all his works into the public domain and insisting he retained no copyrights over any of it.

I like your stuff so much I’ll watch it in whatever form whenever it crosses my feed.

Does your rant have certain similarities to past rants, in a way some people might find controversial?

Who’s gonna be the one to write on LinkedIn what Eurovision taught them about B2B sales?

A skeleton walks into a bar and says “gimme a beer and a mop”

if you've ever heard me mention @adapalmer.bsky.social and @jowalton.bsky.social's Papal Conclave 1492 reenactment ("pope larp"), this is what's up with that. i played in 2022 and i help by writing letters as npc historical figures now, it's dope

I copy the text of this article any time I need to test a field in some software.

YouTube video by NPR Music Sandbox Percussion: Tiny Desk Concert

Sandbox Percussion are totally awesome, and now they have a tinydesk concert! Also I'm on their board now - they're a GREAT team. www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Dv...

New novel idea: Murder at Hilbert’s Hotel.

I know how you can make a plausible looking actuarial table real quick.

Guess whatttttt I'm hiring engineers for my team (accessibility engineering) and one of my immediate peers is also hiring for Primer, our design system! We are looking for earlier-in-career folks as Software Engineer IIs, to best complement and round out our teams. githubinc.jibeapply.com/jobs/3987

From 13 years ago, here’s me speaking at Harvard about how public access to information and government services can’t require agreeing to the terms of service of networks like Facebook and Twitter. anildash.com/2012/12/13/t...

Why sholde you care about the fate of Sonoma State, a pluckye regional public liberal arts & sciences CSU campus yn Northern California? Because California once had a commitmente to public higher ed, and it could once agayne. Because Sonoma State ys a place to believe in. The tide kan turne heere.

A thing I’ve been saying for a while but have not had a chance to write about is that Yahoo Pipes in 2007 (especially in combination with their related product YQL) could do a great deal of the “wow” stuff people want to attribute to GenAI. Much of the “breakthrough” isn’t LLMs but structured data.

Issue 182: And, we're back. A very easy thing you can do to try to get JC schools some more state aid. Plus, new restaurants in McGinley Square, a mayor's race update, and more!

Ok Jersey City friends — I try not to hype my newsletter here but if you’re looking for a really easy way to support our schools, I address that here neighborhoodcharacter.substack.com/p/issue-182-...

globalFEST · Lincoln Center The cultural catalysts at globalFEST have been promoting the world's greatest musical traditions for over 20 years. This annual festival features an eclectic array of…

GlobalFEST NYC tonight at Lincoln Center 7pm-midnight. 10 arris on 3 stages.

Zar Electrik, Maruja Limón, Bamba Wassoulou Groove, Hazmat Modine,, Mireya Ramos and the Poor Choices, Ghazi & Boom.Diwan x Arturo O’Farrill, Akshara Music Ensemble, Paul Beaubrun, Rebolu, and Elida Almeida.

Musiccares is offering immediate financial assistance and food vouchers to anyone who has worked in the music biz for five years or longer.

Boosting this post from my pal Jeff Russo.

ATTN LA Music industry folks:

Musiccares is offering immediate financial assistance and food vouchers to anyone who has worked in the music biz for five years or longer.

Write to musiccaresrelief@musiccares.org or call 800-687-4227

We’ve been watching the Watch Duty team do absolutely *unbelievable* technical work all week (they’re members of our Fast Forward open source program), handling a surge of millions of people trying to see where the fires are in real time. There are still people who do such good on the internet.

Today was the first meeting of my AI and music class, and in the first hour we drew a direct line from AI slop Xmas music to the wildfires raging in LA right now. If you teach AI and don’t discuss its immediate climate impacts, you need to start doing it. Every single day. Here are some sources (🧵):