BoardSpace is another site for playing boardgames online. Overall, I don’t like it as much as Boardgame Arena, but it has its advantages. Some notes about BoardSpace: Design/layout looks like something from the ’90s. Has about a hundred games. Focused primarily (but not exclusively) on abstract strategy games. Has a downloadable app that you use […]
Waymo cars have now driven 1 million miles with no human behind the wheel. Waymo posted a blog post about that in February, focused on Waymo’s safety record during those first million miles. That post links to a paper with many more details. During those first million miles, Waymo vehicles were involved in 20 “contact” […]
I’ve had a few conversations recently about blogs and Dreamwidth and RSS feeds and how to go about reading them in the modern era, so I thought it was worth posting about the app I’ve been using. It’s called News Explorer, and I should start by noting that it’s Apple-ecosystem-only, so it won’t be useful […]
The spring equinox here in the northern hemisphere will be about six hours from now. Here’s my traditional spring quotation of Swinburne: For winter’s rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remember’d is […]
(That title seems like it ought to be the title of a crossover fic between A Few Good Men and The Thing. “The truth? You can’t handle the truth! The truth is I’m a shapeshifting alien!” Nom nom nom) A few good things lately: A week or so ago, I improved the lighting in a […]
On the one hand, I’m still feeling kinda generally grumpy. On the other hand, I’m also feeling a little triumphant (grumphant?), because I have finished going through my boxes of old papers. Or at least I’ve finished the first pass of doing that. I now have the following: One plastic bin full of papers to […]
Today was kind of emotionally exhausting, but productive. (No advice, please.) Background: Although Google laid me off back in January, I’m still officially an employee until March 31—just an employee who has no responsibilities and no access to anything. (US law requires them to give two months’ notice for this kind of thing, but doesn’t […]
Some notes about the boardgame Ark Nova: I was a little dubious about this game when I saw the Kickstarter for it. Some aspects were intriguing, but appeared to include a couple of mechanisms that I tend not to like: polyomino tile arrangement and worker placement. (But see below.) And the zoo-development theme didn’t really […]
Yesterday, I finished sorting one of my plastic bins full of old papers and mail. (This is just an update on my progress on a couple of steps in a big long-term project; not looking for advice.) To celebrate the availability of an empty plastic bin, I promptly half-filled it again, this time with stuff […]
I’ve been thinking lately about my tendencies to keep stuff. (This post is just recording some things I’ve been thinking about, and adding some musings as I go. I’m not looking for advice here.) I have a lot of stuff. A lot of it is stuff that I love and am very happy to have; […]
Interesting paper: “Talking About Large Language Models,” by Murray Shanahan, discussing some of the ways that we talk about AI systems like ChatGPT. “As we build systems whose capabilities more and more resemble those of humans, despite the fact that those systems work in ways that are fundamentally different from the way humans work, it […]
Yesterday, I noticed that my silverware drawer was getting hard to close, because restaurant-takeout disposable chopsticks and drinking straws were getting in the way. (I’ll note upfront that this is not an advice-request post; also, please be careful in your comments not to imply that reduction of clutter is inherently or universally good or positive […]