Sönke Ahrens
Trying to build a function a_or_an(word) proves hilariously challenging for English, surprising no one.
The author catches one dialectal land mine: herb begins with a vowel sound in American English and an /h/ sound in British English. But I see at …
I just experienced a new type of inconsiderate flier: a man stood up during the safety video to get something from an overhead bin. They restarted the safety video.
People are endlessly innovative when it comes to being terrible co-travelers.
Just finished Ezekiel 28, which officially brings me under 100 chapters left to write about for Chapter by Chapter.
It doesn’t seem like much compared to the 1,090 I’ve already written, but it includes Daniel and all the minor prophets.
I have reached Ezekiel 25 in my Chapter by Chapter notes, and now all I want to do is watch Pulp Fiction.
I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I lay my vengeance upon them.
— …
We should celebrate this kind of obsessiveness more often and more loudly.
Today’s newsletter from Matt Ragland is… weird.
It’s titled, “The two words that out you as an AI writer” and boils down to: “genuinely” and “quietly” make your prose sound AI-written. …
Every Monday, Matt Gemmell posts a new short story. They’re usually good, or at least original and interesting.
Today’s is exceptionally well executed.
I just realized I’ve finished notes on more than 90% of the Bible for Chapter By Chapter.
As of today, I’ve finished 1,086 chapters, or just over 91% of the Bible.
I have 103 chapters left to write about.
New word for me from today’s Apple crossword: “pluot.” Well, and “aprium.”
You’d think they were plum/apricot hybrids, and they are, but it’s more complex than that. Simple hybrids are calls plumcots and apriplums; these are “later generations.” …
Cal Newport says that there’s no concern that Tesla’s FSD will “go rogue” in the sense of disobeying traffic laws.
All I have to say is that he may not be as familiar with the state of AV technology in general, and Tesla in particular, as he is with …
The bad news is my flight home got diverted.
A minor silver lining is I got to experience a new piece of Flighty UI.
Today, I realized I listen to two (totally unrelated) podcasts whose acronym uses the letters TPK:
Now I just need podcasts abbreviated KPT, KTP, PTK, and PKT.
When I encountered Mrs. Cotton’s delightful The Doors Stay Open, I initially thought that perhaps The Grudgery was leaking.
Considering the author, I’m not convinced it’s not.
Some of my oldest habits as a human creator have become markers of AI slop.
Example one: I love the em dash. I use it all the time. But for some reason LLMs, especially early chat models, developed a conspicuous fondness for the em dash—often in …
Visiting DC this week, and I continue to laugh at Americans who stand directly in front of subway doors to board and then get shocked when they have to move to let people off the train first.
The Guardian managed to write almost three thousand words about the history of the modern industrialized two-day weekend—published on a Sunday—without using the word “Sabbath” once.
Remarkable.
Despite the repeated warnings about the invader/conqueror from the north, the book of Jeremiah doesn’t actually mention Babylon by name until chapter 20.
He spends nineteen chapters talking about this impending disaster “from the …
On The Talk Show 452, “A Scam Held Together with Patriotism and Golden Paint”, John Gruber said:
One of the things that, to me, just defines a Mac app is being able to open whatever the element of the app is, you should be able to open …
“No, Saturday is the day of pre-rest. Yeah, so that way, when you actually get to Sunday, you’re rested enough to enjoy your rest.”
—Lorelai Gilmore, Gilmore Girls, S1E17
Our marathon-of-marathons has surfaced a lovely bit of wisdom: Lorelai …
Yesterday’s thunderstorm cooled off the valley enough for me to get outside for the first time in a few weeks.
AllTrails estimated 2.5 hours for this trail, so I was fairly surprised to find myself back at the parking lot in 97 minutes.
Yesterday, during a thunderstorm, the Costco we were in lost power. Everyone continued to shop with phone flashlights until they herded us out.
Apparently the registers ran on battery, so we were all able to check out, but then we were trapped at the …
Working my way through my Chapter by Chapter notes on Jeremiah tonight, I kept thinking, These chapters are really long!
Fortunately, I had already built some Bible-data machinery for this article. So naturally, instead of getting back to my notes, I …
The ESV study Bible’s notes on Jeremiah begin,
Determining the authorship of the book of Jeremiah is complicated by several factors…
I understand and appreciate the challenges; I just love the juxtaposition of the name of the book, …
We have started our Fall marathon-of-marathons a little… early… this year.
First up: Gilmore Girls.
An uneven show for sure, but I’ll never turn down something with such excellent dialogue delivered so well.
Bonus trivia: Star’s Hollow uses the same …
