RIP.
We continue to lose giants from the early days of PCs.
Category Archives: Mathematics
Coding And AI
An interesting X thread of diverse experiences:
This is a certain kind of talk around LLMs that I find increasingly puzzling. That is all of the people bitching that LLMs constantly generate crap code and hallucinate solutions, and are worthless for programming.
— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) July 8, 2026
This has almost never happened to me, and never during the last…
My own experience is that it can be useful in providing first drafts for things like business plans, requirements documents, etc., but I have to edit, and many wouldn’t have the knowledge to do it properly or recognize issues. It can be a multiplier of both good and bad.
[Update a while ago]
The wages of AI: Professor bans take-home exams after rampant cheating.
What would terrify me about this if I were a student again would be having to go back to handwriting papers and essays. If I didn’t have a keyboard, I’d have hardly written anything in my life.
“Starship Is Going Nowhere”
I gave up on this Elon-deranged nonsense after the paragraph in which he demonstrated his profound ignorance of orbital mechanics and the rocket equation, because I’m at an AIAA conference all week and don’t have time to properly fisk it, but have at it in comments.
Future Scarcity
An interesting discussion on the implications of AI and robots. Read the whole thread.
Maybe unpopular opinion? I think an age of abundance via AI might cause more war instead of less, because the value of land on earth will trend toward infinity (there is finite land on earth), while the cost of creating robot armies to fight over it will trend toward zero.
— Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) April 18, 2026
Paul Ehrlich
Given a chance, he would have been a greater mass murderer than Mao.
Dave Cheuvront
This was unexpected. I saw him at the beginning of the month in Orlando at the NSS Space Settlement Summit. I quoted and referenced him in my Reason Foundation study, for his work in showing that multiple launches were actually lower mission risk than a single one. Lori Guisewhite (who I also saw there) remembers him as well.
RIP and Ad Astra.
Reality Has Caught Up To “Climate Change”
Good news, from VDH.
Professor Mann
There seems to be some confusion about his employment situation. Yes, he resigned from his administrative position at Penn, but he is still a professor there.
For now.
The Climate Hysteria
Are we at a turning point?
We can hope.
Recursive Improvement In AI
Thoughts from Eric Drexler.