A list of links to all my non-tech writings:
Essays
Glanglish - with audio versions
Miscellaneous essays - new post
Travel writings
Novels
Poems
Sonnets - new post
16 June 2026
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.
05 June 2026
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
29 May 2026
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.
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
28 May 2026
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.
18 May 2026
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
17 May 2026
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?
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
Why The US Can’t Adopt Ukraine’s Innovative Approach To Unmanned Warfare Systems
In other words, today’s obsession with protecting intellectual monopolies above all else could one day prove a major obstacle to fighting — and winning — future wars.
On Techdirt.
15 May 2026
The Final Touch
Heads down, they tap, squeeze and slide
Themselves through equally zombified crowds, thumb-
Typing away, doomscrolling; some
Just stop and stare, horror-happy-eyed
At the wonder of this, their talisman. It’s
A wallet, camera, map, clock, translator,
TV, computer, torch, calculator,
Ebook, calendar, and boom box in one, which fits
In your pocket. Twenty years ago, much
Effort was squandered on styluses, wheels and knobs
That failed to turn phone into platform. It took Jobs
To add that “one more thing”: a god-like touch.
Today’s ubiquitous, magic, confab-
ulating wand is not a stick, but a delicate slab.
Themselves through equally zombified crowds, thumb-
Typing away, doomscrolling; some
Just stop and stare, horror-happy-eyed
At the wonder of this, their talisman. It’s
A wallet, camera, map, clock, translator,
TV, computer, torch, calculator,
Ebook, calendar, and boom box in one, which fits
In your pocket. Twenty years ago, much
Effort was squandered on styluses, wheels and knobs
That failed to turn phone into platform. It took Jobs
To add that “one more thing”: a god-like touch.
Today’s ubiquitous, magic, confab-
ulating wand is not a stick, but a delicate slab.
(14.3.26) v 1.0
14 May 2026
So, What’s Next?
Once upon a time, I sang – yet
Again – of word processors, spreadsheets, data-
bases, comms (though not the Internet,
A concept that emerged many years later);
And alongside the boring Big Four some-
thing new: artificial intelligence,
The fifth digital horseman, still to come.
It’s now – what? – forty years thence,
And that hoary old tech is transformed, choosing
Like an ancient bard from the heroic word-hoard,
Or like trouvères and troubadours musing
On the mot juste to please promptly a lord.
Art and AI both try to answer the vexed
Eternal question: “so, what’s next?”
Again – of word processors, spreadsheets, data-
bases, comms (though not the Internet,
A concept that emerged many years later);
And alongside the boring Big Four some-
thing new: artificial intelligence,
The fifth digital horseman, still to come.
It’s now – what? – forty years thence,
And that hoary old tech is transformed, choosing
Like an ancient bard from the heroic word-hoard,
Or like trouvères and troubadours musing
On the mot juste to please promptly a lord.
Art and AI both try to answer the vexed
Eternal question: “so, what’s next?”
(22.3.26) v 1.0
12 May 2026
2026 Skopje
 |
| Just don't call him Alexander the Great |
The most amazing thing about this place is that it exists, a complete culture and nation that practically no one outside knows about. It is like a secret land, hiding in plain sight. This ensemble – the square, statues, river, buildings – is astonishing. Although quite new, it has an eternal, classical feel to it. It brings to mind The Ideal City, usually attributed to the architect and artist Fra Carnevale.
A short trip to the mysterious and little-known Skopje, capital of North Macedonia, with its intriguing mixture of ancient Ottoman culture and in-your-face neoclassicism. It also has 202 red double-decker buses - made in China.
10 March 2026
Moody Sonnets
As some people may have noticed, there's a new entry in the pinned post above: Moody Sonnets. As well as a few dozen things I wrote decades ago, there are also new entries from recent months.
The plan is to write something every week or so. That's probably over-optimistic on my part, but hey. In any case, I hope the new site provides some mild distraction from everything else that is going on in the world.