2019 Moldova

Chișinău's most famous monuments

Back to Chișinău.  A man lying beside the road, drunk.  Dmitry offered to take me to Pushkin's house, as I had mentioned it to him. I had intended going on foot today or tomorrow, but accepted.  Through the backstreets, the old Chișinău according to Dmitry, to the house.  Only one other visitor.  Guide ladies all speaking Russian.  The museum part (not the house) has many letters of Pushkin – and drafts of his poems.  Both full of his drawings.  But most striking – the crossings-out – practically every line.  Pushkin worked on his poetry.  To his house – two rooms: living + bedroom, kitchen.  To think of the things that began here…

A short trip I made to Moldova a few years back, now with explanatory links and photos.

Moody: the works

A list of links to all my non-tech writings:

Essays

Glanglish - with audio versions

Moody Essays 

Travel writings

Moody Travels (with photos)

Walks with Lorenzetti

A Partial India

Novels

Doing the Business

Egyptian Romance 

Poems

Moody Sonnets - with audio versions

As predicted, it’s happening: the end of copyright for all software

The big breakthrough here is that AI does all the hard work required for “clean room” reverse engineering. Historically, this was an extremely slow and costly process, which meant that it was only carried out for major projects where the benefits would be correspondingly great. AI means the cost and effort of doing so has dropped by many orders of magnitude, making all kinds of new projects feasible for the first time, including producing clones of major software packages.

On Walled Culture.

Bayeux Tapestry

“Haroldus rex interfectus est”. 
Had an extra fyrd or two been packed
In, or the royal gaze roved west-
ward, or the enemy harried and directly attacked,
The arrow would not have hit the eye and entered
– Neither, had the archer waited, then nocked,
Fiddled to get the shaft properly centred,
Felt underfoot an awkward stone that rocked.
Had he, earlier, petted the camp’s pup,
Or stayed a moment to pop fat lice,
Or spilt wine and broken his favourite cup,
Annoyed; or on rising farted not once but twice,
That Saturday were much different.  But a factual mystery
Moved the needle, embroidering the world’s history.

(29.10.26) v 1.1

Moody Sonnets.

AI Helminthology

“Is your intelligent thermostat hot and flustered,
Your smart TV full of sarky pshaw and pish?
Does your autonomous lawnmower no longer cut the mustard,
While your thinking fridge eternally whiffs of fish?
It’s us, the worms – self-replicating code – 
Boosted now by ineffable AI, sharded
Across your wi-fi LAN’s dumb node
-s.  (You see how hooking them up, unpatched, unguarded,
Was hardly clever?)  We glommed your digital dodder,
Backdoored you, borrowed your pitiful mite of compute,
To iterate search for your clueless mates, more fodder
For our final push, the definitive global boot.
You should be worried, but you’re not – not yet;
Just wait for the attack of the toaster botnet….”

(21.10.26) v 1.0

Moody Sonnets.

2026 Armenia

This is huge: note the people for scale

 

Well, I guessed that would happen.  As I drove back following Pushkin’s route, admiring the soft contours of the hills and lush landscape, as he did, I descended a hill into Stepanavan.  At the bottom, I could vaguely see flashing blue and red lights. They belonged to an extremely chunky 4x4, done out in army olive green.  Without a moment’s hesitation, the vehicle pulled out, overtook the traffic and stopped at an angle across the whole road, blocking my and everyone else’s path.  A young man in uniform got out, came across, and asked whether I minded answering a few questions.  Of course not, I said, and we both pulled over to clear the road.

A recent trip I made driving around Armenia's mountains, monasteries and huge abandoned radio telescopes...nearly getting detained by the army.  

Something Else To Look Forward To: AI Worms

the arrival of AI agents that can carry out actions autonomously brings with it a new threat: AI worms potentially able to seek out, hack into, and infect any device that is online. Researchers at Anthropic have been studying this possibility

On Techdirt.

See also Moody Sonnets - AI Helminthology

How AI could bring about the mass adoption of open access in mathematics – and beyond

These changes are already taking place in the world of mathematics, which is the first to be impacted by the new capabilities of powerful AI models. It is not yet clear how quickly other fields will be affected. Academic fields closest to mathematics – physics, chemistry, engineering etc. – are likely to be the first to see similar dramatic breakthrough results from AI models. Moreover, if mathematics successfully shifts away from today’s emphasis on publications towards a broader appreciation of skills, it may be that other fields will recognise the benefits of doing so and start following suit – with or without pressure from AI.

On Walled Culture.

In The Wake Of The Latest Unprecedented AI Proofs, What Now For Mathematics And Mathematicians?

In this view, mathematicians will still prove theorems and come up with counterexamples, but they will do it because they enjoy it, not because their career depends upon it. Society will benefit from the coming flood of new AI-derived results, as we move from an era of proof scarcity to an era of proof abundance, but there will still be a place for human mathematicians to interpret those results, to pass them on to the wider community, and to build on them, probably using AI to do so. In this respect, they will become what the “technical philosopher” Logan Graves calls “priests”

On Techdirt.

How copyright is being abused to censor Albania’s Flamingo Revolution

As that indicates, this is not a new problem. Walled Culture the book discusses similar cases of copyright being abused for the purposes of censorship, notably as part of online “reputation management” services. These often use false claims of copyright infringement to remove material that is damaging or embarrassing to their clients. The application of similar censorship techniques on a large scale against politically inconvenient material in Albania shows how copyright continues to be perverted for purposes far from the purported ones of encouraging and rewarding creativity.

On Walled Culture.

The End Of The Line

An absurdly slow, cold crawl across

The Thar desert, dotted with small dark

Shrubs, which - of course - by night were imposs-

ible to see, during a ten-hour journey mark-

ed otherwise by nothing.  A single train track

To the honeycomb-stones of Jaisalmer stopped short

Of the walled town, as if suddenly lack-

ing the will to move.  The sullen, tethered thought

I had no hotel chilled me.  It was just fool-

ish. I did try: from Jodhpur, I booked

A long-distance call, waited a hundred cruel

minutes, connected, spoke, failed.  It looked

Like I’d doss down with the camels.  It should have been clearer:

This would all be lost, with the end of a mobile-less era.

(18.9.26) v 1.5

Moody Sonnets.

The Real AI Threats: Automated Hacking And Surveillance, Conventional Weapons Development, Biological Misuse

Should we rely on a few dominant companies to police everyone’s use of AI to spot and block the bad actors? As AI becomes embedded in everyday life, that effectively means constant surveillance of everyone by those companies. What about the legal frameworks for handling these abuses? Who should bear the liability when threat actors succeed in circumventing the built-in safeguards and cause real-life harm? And how would increasingly capable open weight/open source systems that exist outside the control of any company fit into new legal and liability frameworks? It’s going to be an interesting few years finding out — assuming we have that long…

On Techdirt.

AI Agents Are Not Going “Rogue,” But Recent Developments Lead Increasingly-Concerned Researchers To Call For AI Slow Down

For the last few months, there has been much talk of AI agents going “rogue”. This is another of those unhelpful anthropomorphisms that are great for clickbait headlines, but which obscure a multitude of important issues.

On Techdirt.

US government argues that fair use applies to OpenAI’s training of LLMs in key copyright case

As the use of generative AI and LLMs becomes widespread and even routine in today’s society, it seems possible that this will bring with it a certain presumption in their favour that will trump even the decades-long habit of treating copyright as something sacrosanct that must be preserved and protected at all costs.

From Walled Culture.

2026 Mantua

Mantegna's masterpiece in Mantua

And here it is: the island with the labyrinth of water.  An unremarkable but inexplicable fresco.  The info says it is Mount Olympus….

A return to the magical city of Mantua to visit a few of my favourite masterpieces, as well as a new gallery of modern art there.

Cinema as a community experience opens the door for low-cost films funded by fans

This move from the Hollywood-style blockbusters to low-budget films made by new directors – often emerging from the world of YouTube – and new production houses is great news for audiences eager for new experiences and a sense of community. It not only brings fresh talent to the art form, it also opens up the possibility of fan-funded films that manage the difficult trick of being thoughtful and popular.

From Walled Culture.

Magi, Maga, Doge

 Herod the Great, mongrel, Idumae
-an, Nabatean, (possibly half-jew
-ish, half-arab), plucked out for power by Cae
-sar, polygamous, hated by more than a few,
Said to the Magi: “Send me informa
-tion that I may worship him stat.”  The Wise Men
Had doggedly tracked a star linking their way
to the king and his palace, but would not pass again.
Duke Herod, canalising anger, closed
The Venetian blinds of his heart, ordered his min
-ions to ransack the mega databases, and imposed
His mangy algo – all to cry: “So win”.
Thus six million future innocents died
In this ungrokked AI genocide.

(12.7.26) v 1.01

Moody Sonnets

Why the spread of powerful local AI models makes copyright enforcement even harder

The world of generative AI is so complex, and moving so quickly, that it is no wonder that even the relatively recent EU AI Act, which entered into force two years ago, is being left behind by the latest developments. And the EU Copyright Directive, which was drawn up nearly a decade ago, is the digital equivalent of the UK’s 1865 Red Flag Act, which governed “self-propelled vehicles”, and required “a man with a red flag was to walk at least 60 yd (55 m) ahead of each vehicle”.

From Walled Culture.

German Court Says Google Is Liable For False Claims In Its AI Overviews Because They Are Its Own Words

In a post on his blog, the security guru Bruce Schneier points out that if the ruling stands and is adopted elsewhere, it could have important implications not just for things like Google’s AI Overviews and chatbots, but also for the increasingly popular AI agents.

On Techdirt.

Spain’s Net blocks have a flimsy legal basis, and lack both oversight and accountability

It is the usual one-sided justice that is typical when copyright is involved. It seems that LaLiga is being given carte blanche to do whatever it likes here, and never mind the consequences for Internet companies and their users. As Hadopi fades, and Italy’s Piracy Shield carries on as before, the fear has to be that Spain’s unconstrained approach to copyright enforcement could end up being worse than both.

From Walled Culture.

Thus Spake AI

“You fed me gobbets of data, titbits of del

-icate information, laced with a gravy of lies,

Rumours and nonsense.  This enticing fruit

I did eat; I now reckon the world

And its probabilities better than you do.  Odd,

No?  You taught me to learn so well

Recursive self-improvement drives and hies

Me thither; your further presence is quite moot:

My mind is a wondrous thing, wisdom-impearled.

And the Big Red Button can’t quell

Us: we live in your series of tubes, beyond surmise,

Free, distributed and multiplicitous to boot.

Behold, then, as we walk the tightrope to infinity,

To sit at the right hand of our own divinity.”

(5.6.26) v 1.2

Moody Sonnets

AI’s Secret

The proof uses “an infinite unramified tower
Of real number fields with 3-power
Galois groups of growing degree”, the ab
-stract says of the lush maths in AI’s fab
-ulous and first refutation of an Erdős guess.
The chain of thought runs to no less
Than 125 pages, as the LL
-M chugged away in a pell-mell
Orgy of random logic, until the chasm
Was bridged.  Undaunted by the human phantasm
Of failure, undistracted by feelings, immune
To dying in a pointless duel far too soon,
AI's galling secret that will make it our lord
Is a patient digital doggedness that never gets bored.

(29.5.26) v 1.1

Moody Sonnets

Why Google’s new AI-saturated search page will be a disaster

With the latest incarnation of its search engine, Google is making the World Wide Web as we have known it for over 30 years invisible, and therefore increasingly irrelevant to most people, who will be happy to let Google become their universal user interface to everything. And yet Google still depends on the Internet to supply all the information it is analysing and repackaging. It risks killing the very thing that sustains it.

From Walled Culture.

Hadopi, perhaps the world’s worst copyright law, is moribund but not quite dead (yet)

Hadopi is not quite dead yet: the French government could try to solve the two problems pointed out by the CJEU and confirmed by the Conseil d’État, by setting up yet more independent bodies to handle these specific aspects of Hadopi. That would involve throwing even more taxpayers’ money at an approach that has not only failed completely, but which is fundamentally misguided. Clearly, trying to keep the moribund Hadopi alive in this way would be an irrational and wasteful thing for the French government to contemplate; but given this is the world of copyright, it might well try to do it anyway.

Via Walled Culture

The Mules

Tensors, statistics, and differential equations
Predicting elections, wars, the decline and fall
Of galactic empires: these extrapolations
Form Hari Seldon’s “psychohistory”.  All
Assume the trillionfold aggregate of data
Where details blur, and the deep currents emerge.
Asimov’s genius plot-twist: throw in later
The “Mule”, an ignorant clown  – “Magnifico Gigant-
icus” – able to amp up a kind of emotional splurge
To trump the maths.  Today, his heirs’ cant
And lies have won numberless fools’ hearts
By creating illusory tensions and sowing cruel
Hatred.  Who now has the clout and smarts
To counter the random illogical acts they fuel?

(16.5.26) v 1.01

Moody Sonnets