Estebantxo

I want to repeat this because it’s the most common misconception that comes up when I talk about AI’s ability to transform biology: I am not talking about AI as merely a tool to analyze data. In line with the definition of powerful AI at the beginning of this essay, I’m talking about using AI to perform, direct, and improve upon nearly everything b... See more

Bloggers, here's an idea. When you write a piece you're proud of, end it with a sentence like this: "And that's why I have a blog." It plants a seed, which through repetition and appearing in many places, might help people appreciate the purpose of a blog. We've had a lot of mud slung at us, let's start undoing that.

For if

once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think

little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and

Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once

begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop.

At some point I realised I could solve these problems by turning folders into mini-websites. I could create an HTML file in the top-level folder, which could be an index – a list of all the files, displayed with all the custom metadata and tags I wanted.

This allowed me to radically simplify the folder structure, and stop chasing the perfect hierarc... See more

All this made me think of Joan Didion’s most famous sentence: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” It’s a sentence that has found its way onto Pinterest boards, T-shirts, and coffee mugs, as though it were a consoling affirmation of The Power of Storytelling. It is not.

The sentence is the first one of Didion’s essay “The White Album,” whi... See more