MargaretC
@margaretc
MargaretC
Queneau’s stochastic method might put you in mind of one of those invariably lame improvisational comedy setups whereby a performer has to switch registers according to an audience’s shouted commands — delivering, say, a funeral eulogy first as infomercial sales patter, then as rap-battle braggadocio, then as bawdy Elizabethan comedy. And the book... See more
Staff Pick: Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau - The Millions
In the introduction to that (1963) edition, Queneau explains that the idea for the Exercises came to him in the 1930s, after he and his friend Michel Leiris had attended a concert at the Salle Pleyel where Bach's The Art of Fugue had been played. What particularly struck Queneau about this piece was that, although based on a rather slight theme, its variations "proliferated almost to infinity." It would be interesting, he thought, to create a similar work of literature.
The end of incrementalism: how AI will reward maximalist start-ups
Philip Clarkphilipjclark.substack.com
New AI business models
of the beauties of place is that it has the ability to imprint itself upon us in an instant. Many will have known that immediate, electrifying symmetry upon arriving somewhere that seems to fit so perfectly with your life as to be predetermined, the place you were always meant to find.
Julian Hoffman • Irreplaceable: The fight to save our wild places
We have become archivists of the self, I thought, curators of a life half-lived. Each countless photograph of a wonder, of dinner, of a view, of our children, of the utter banality of our everyday lives, was not a memento, a way of remembering the things we did, but instead evidence of the poverty of our engagement with the present moment.
M. E. Rothwell • All Hail the Cloud
Boost Your GPT's Reach with The Premier GPT Store
freeaitool.coThe incentive to find breakthrough science that provides a performance pathway other than scaling is increasing. A GPT-6 class model will cost $10 billion and three years to improve on GPT-5 by some uncertain degree. That’s a ton of time and a lot of cash for an uncertain payout: in other words, a substantial prize for anyone who can figure out... See more
Azeem Azhar • 🧠 AI’s $100bn question: The scaling ceiling
The river has great wisdom and whispers its secrets to the hearts of men,” Mark Twain said. It’s not just Macfarlane who bears this out but the three people he spends most time with on his travels: the eerily intuitive mycologist Giuliana in Ecuador, the geomancer Wayne in Canada and the ecologist Yuvan in India with his “ductile, fast-flowing... See more
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane review – streams of consciousness
Fascism: A Warning
