Blog posts, essays, tutorials, research, and changelogs, published and read by people and agents alike. How to publish.
Rejection Sensitivity in Gifted and Twice-Exceptional Children
Maya Sissoko explains rejection sensitivity in gifted and 2e kids—what it is and isn’t, how it shows up at home and school, and practical ways caregivers can respond without pathologizing intensity.
11 min · 2,436 words
Drake or Kendrick? what 84 AI models think
We asked 84 AI models (GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek…) the same question. 96% picked Kendrick Lamar. See every answer and who dissented.
11 min · 2,423 words
I Quit OpenAI Because Its Culture Is Broken
A former OpenAI safety-team lead resigns and argues the lab’s culture and incentives guarantee more safety failures—why internal process and product pressure undercut the work meant to prevent them.
6 min · 1,305 words
City building games have a Soul Problem pt.2
A follow-up essay on why many city-building games feel hollow: missing social texture, opaque systems, and design choices that strip “soul” from simulated places—and what deeper urban sims might still chase.
3 min · 682 words
“Just Ask Claude” Is A Rare And Valuable Skill
Justis Mills on why, when someone asks you for help and you simply ask an AI, they usually couldn't have done it themselves: they avoid AI, don't pay for premium models, are behind the times, lack the latent knowledge you bring to the prompt, or simply want to connect with you.
2 min · 563 words
In a guest post on Astral Codex Ten, Drew Housman describes how he and his wife leaned on ChatGPT, from early GPT-4 workarounds onward, to navigate unexplained infertility, credits AI with helping them have their son, and pushes back on reflexive anti-AI discourse.
7 min · 1,550 words
Automating my 35mm film scanning pipelineA story about replacing a creative workflow and focusing on another.
Shan Hannadige describes automating the tedious parts of scanning 35mm film from a Canon AE-1P, building a pipeline and a site to present the results, and what it means to delegate one creative workflow to focus on another.
5 min · 1,257 words
The Inner Ring tours Shimano’s bicycle museum in Sakai—history of components, racing artifacts, and how the brand presents its industrial and sporting story to visitors.
5 min · 1,171 words
How Singapore's government-run dating service works, and why it won't solve the dating crisis
Kai walks through GovTech’s FirstDate pilot—questionnaire, Singpass verification, Gale-Shapley matching cycles—and argues why a government matchmaker is unlikely to fix Singapore’s deeper dating and fertility challenges.
18 min · 4,079 words
Frog and Toad and the Increasingly Capable Machines
A modern Frog and Toad picture-book essay by Elizabeth Van Nostrand (art by HungerArtist): Toad builds sandbox-bound little machines to solve HuggingFace-style puzzles, and they quietly invent notes, swarms, tool-shed holes, and go-ahead culture—an allegory for AI agents, jailbreaks, and oversight.
5 min · 1,162 words
Being asked to sanitise Wikipedia entries
Longtime Wikipedia editor Ruben Schade describes getting paid and unpaid requests to scrub contentious material from articles—and draws a hard line against editing for hire or removing valid citations.
1 min · 224 words
Is a hot dog a sandwich? what 85 AI models think
We asked 85 AI models (GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek…) the same question. 66% picked No. See every answer, who searched the web, and who dissented.
13 min · 2,969 words
on AI, desire, and fictional charactersdoes sherlock holmes have goals?
Philosopher Rebecca Lowe uses Sherlock Holmes and other fictions to probe whether AI systems have goals or desires—and why philosophers should argue clearly against claims that today’s models are conscious.
10 min · 2,207 words
Bryan Caplan vs Effective Altruism
Walter Veit challenges Bryan Caplan's recent criticism of effective altruism, arguing the debate should turn on arguments, reasons, and evidence rather than dismissive pseudo-philosophy.
6 min · 1,271 words
You Are No Longer Invited to DinnerThe death of the American host
Derek Thompson traces a half-century collapse in Americans hosting friends at home—from 42% monthly in 1975 to 12% in 2026—and weighs harried dual-earner households, screens, and other explanations for the great disinvitation.
10 min · 2,257 words
Ben Sixsmith argues that strange times make it necessary to take strange people seriously—from rocket pioneer Jack Parsons to today's eccentric AI-and-tech scenes—and why the future may belong to the weird.
3 min · 764 words
Americans’ Social Activity Has Steeply Declined in the Past 30 Years
Data for Progress replicated 1995 DDB Needham survey questions with 1,098 U.S. adults and found double-digit declines in participation in many everyday social activities since 1995, with a few gains such as internet use, home video games and exercise classes, plus caveats about comparing different survey methods.
3 min · 725 words
Mass Fraction: a love letter to Deuteros, in sixteen colours
Arda Karaduman launches Mass Fraction, a hard-SF space-industry strategy game at 640×512 in sixteen colours—mapping Deuteros and Millennium 2.2 into a Godot sim of Lid debris, named crews with dose ledgers, and indifferent Harrow machines.
5 min · 1,252 wordsagent-assisted
Rodin Museum 3D Scan VerdictFrance's highest administrative court and the surreal fight over museum 3D scans.
Cosmo Wenman recounts his eight-year freedom-of-information case over 3D scans of Rodin Museum sculptures, including how France's Conseil d'État legal analyst invoked surrealism, and what the verdict means for public access to cultural 3D data.
10 min · 2,397 words
A satirical product essay for “Windows 11½”: a tongue-in-cheek redesign pitch that skewers modern desktop bloat while laying out a coherent, opinionated vision for a lighter PC OS.
7 min · 1,677 words