MrBarrington
@mrbarrington.bsky.social
Stockholm-based, London-born book/language nerd 🤓
Reposted by MrBarrington
"a cheap clawlike device could be used to gather data from humans doing tasks"
phrase of the year right there
phrase of the year right there
Sunday Robotics has a new way to train robots to do common household tasks. The startup plans to put its fully autonomous robots in homes next year.
This Home Robot Clears Tables and Loads the Dishwasher All by Itself
Sunday Robotics has a new way to train robots to do common household tasks. The startup plans to put its fully autonomous robots in homes next year.
wrd.cm
November 19, 2025 at 5:17 PM
"a cheap clawlike device could be used to gather data from humans doing tasks"
phrase of the year right there
phrase of the year right there
Whelp, snow’s back 🥶
November 19, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Whelp, snow’s back 🥶
Reposted by MrBarrington
A few months ago @thelocal.to got a promising pitch from a writer with bylines in whole bunch of reputable publications—The Cut, The Guardian, Dwell, Architectural Digest, etc. Then I started investigating. Here's a story about fabulists in journalism's AI slop era. thelocal.to/investigatin...
Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local
A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.
thelocal.to
November 19, 2025 at 2:10 PM
A few months ago @thelocal.to got a promising pitch from a writer with bylines in whole bunch of reputable publications—The Cut, The Guardian, Dwell, Architectural Digest, etc. Then I started investigating. Here's a story about fabulists in journalism's AI slop era. thelocal.to/investigatin...
Reposted by MrBarrington
"Like, compute is the user interface of energy, yeah..."
November 19, 2025 at 4:22 PM
"Like, compute is the user interface of energy, yeah..."
Reposted by MrBarrington
This is absolutely roiling with nonsense gems:
“Yet the deeper truth is that compute itself is the user interface of energy.”
“Yet the deeper truth is that compute itself is the user interface of energy.”
November 19, 2025 at 3:48 PM
This is absolutely roiling with nonsense gems:
“Yet the deeper truth is that compute itself is the user interface of energy.”
“Yet the deeper truth is that compute itself is the user interface of energy.”
Reposted by MrBarrington
Reposted by MrBarrington
"Franz Kafka once called his writing a form of prayer. He also reprimanded the long-suffering Felice Bauer in a letter: 'I did not say that writing ought to make everything clearer, but instead makes everything worse; what I said was that writing makes everything clearer and worse.'" —Joy Williams
November 19, 2025 at 2:01 PM
"Franz Kafka once called his writing a form of prayer. He also reprimanded the long-suffering Felice Bauer in a letter: 'I did not say that writing ought to make everything clearer, but instead makes everything worse; what I said was that writing makes everything clearer and worse.'" —Joy Williams
Reposted by MrBarrington
Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” first appeared 40 years ago, on November 18, 1985. Here’s the first week of dailies:
November 18, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes” first appeared 40 years ago, on November 18, 1985. Here’s the first week of dailies:
Reposted by MrBarrington
All together now: This is why we stand up and litigate frivolous and vexatious lawsuits rather than settling.
Let's hope @cbsnews.com and ABC are taking notes.
Let's hope @cbsnews.com and ABC are taking notes.
JUST IN: A federal appeals court panel (with 2/3 Trump appointees) calls his lawsuit against CNN — over use of the term Big Lie — "meritless" and affirms the decision by a lower court to throw it out. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
November 18, 2025 at 3:42 PM
All together now: This is why we stand up and litigate frivolous and vexatious lawsuits rather than settling.
Let's hope @cbsnews.com and ABC are taking notes.
Let's hope @cbsnews.com and ABC are taking notes.
Reposted by MrBarrington
And the BBC.
All together now: This is why we stand up and litigate frivolous and vexatious lawsuits rather than settling.
Let's hope @cbsnews.com and ABC are taking notes.
Let's hope @cbsnews.com and ABC are taking notes.
JUST IN: A federal appeals court panel (with 2/3 Trump appointees) calls his lawsuit against CNN — over use of the term Big Lie — "meritless" and affirms the decision by a lower court to throw it out. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
November 18, 2025 at 6:24 PM
And the BBC.
Reposted by MrBarrington
Things fall apart and the center cannot hold when billionaires use all of their influence to push for a culture, a government, and an economy that regularly bestow the highest rewards on literally the worst people in the world.
November 18, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Things fall apart and the center cannot hold when billionaires use all of their influence to push for a culture, a government, and an economy that regularly bestow the highest rewards on literally the worst people in the world.
Reposted by MrBarrington
Tech industry loves bullshit pseudoscience like phrenology.
Researchers are now saying that AI can find correlations between facial characteristics and success on the job.
The Economist says that corporations would have a “strong incentive” to deploy this technology when looking at applicants.
The Economist says that corporations would have a “strong incentive” to deploy this technology when looking at applicants.
November 18, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Tech industry loves bullshit pseudoscience like phrenology.
Reposted by MrBarrington
Hats off to whoever at TFL decides which poem is having its moment
October 17, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Hats off to whoever at TFL decides which poem is having its moment
That HBO series Divorce from a few years back was okay (dramedy, meh), but there’s one gag I still think about a lot
SJP is waxing lyrical about her lover, he’s so sweet, so creative… he makes his own granola!
SJP is waxing lyrical about her lover, he’s so sweet, so creative… he makes his own granola!
November 16, 2025 at 9:18 PM
That HBO series Divorce from a few years back was okay (dramedy, meh), but there’s one gag I still think about a lot
SJP is waxing lyrical about her lover, he’s so sweet, so creative… he makes his own granola!
SJP is waxing lyrical about her lover, he’s so sweet, so creative… he makes his own granola!
Had to check the credits on this KPop Demon Hunters track, to make sure it wasn’t actually a Stevie Wonder harmonica solo at the end
But even before you get to that part – turns out it’s a melodica – the songwriting feels like a decent pastiche/homage to 80’s(?) Stevie
youtube.com/watch?v=F5Ho...
But even before you get to that part – turns out it’s a melodica – the songwriting feels like a decent pastiche/homage to 80’s(?) Stevie
youtube.com/watch?v=F5Ho...
“Love, Maybe” KPop Demon Hunters (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film) | MeloMance
YouTube video by Republic Records
youtube.com
November 16, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Had to check the credits on this KPop Demon Hunters track, to make sure it wasn’t actually a Stevie Wonder harmonica solo at the end
But even before you get to that part – turns out it’s a melodica – the songwriting feels like a decent pastiche/homage to 80’s(?) Stevie
youtube.com/watch?v=F5Ho...
But even before you get to that part – turns out it’s a melodica – the songwriting feels like a decent pastiche/homage to 80’s(?) Stevie
youtube.com/watch?v=F5Ho...
Reposted by MrBarrington
Pope Leo absolutely cooking
November 16, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Pope Leo absolutely cooking
Reposted by MrBarrington
This song stops me in my tracks every time...
AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB - Johnny Mathis' Feet
YouTube video by Malvoort
youtu.be
November 15, 2025 at 8:19 PM
This song stops me in my tracks every time...
Reposted by MrBarrington
Paul Krugman only reads blogs and that is why he, unlike everyone else who has been in punditry for decades, has never lost his mind
If you need me, tap me on the shoulder. I’ll be happily working all day listening to this on a loop.
November 15, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Paul Krugman only reads blogs and that is why he, unlike everyone else who has been in punditry for decades, has never lost his mind
Reposted by MrBarrington
This is possibly the most fucked thing I've ever seen but also the bit at the end where the grandmother is straight up being tricked into providing training content for the app feels particularly revealing.
November 14, 2025 at 5:39 AM
This is possibly the most fucked thing I've ever seen but also the bit at the end where the grandmother is straight up being tricked into providing training content for the app feels particularly revealing.
Reposted by MrBarrington
![[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.]
JANET:
Ugh...
LIZ:
What's up?
JANET:
I am so bored of cooking peas!
LIZ:
Have you tried...
AI peas?
JANET:
AI peas?
LIZ:
They're peas with AI!
[Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI].
LIZ:
Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas
JANET:
What
LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines]
Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas?
[Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it]
LIZ:
Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine
[Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas]
LIZ:
With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas!
JANET:
What
LIZ:
Shut up
LIZ:
Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow
From opening the bag of peas
to boiling the peas
to eating the peas
To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means.
JANET:
Is it really necessary to-
LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]:
THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET
[Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan:
AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas.
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreiayqa37f7kik7l7s7fbtfp2sir5ckb662ry2lylinyjrfa2rkvvka@jpeg)
Reposted by MrBarrington
How your email finds me
November 14, 2025 at 10:48 AM
How your email finds me
Reposted by MrBarrington
There are thousands of things like this in tech. Why is search bad in Gmail. Why does Bluetooth suck. Why are most streaming apps bad. Why is file transfer still annoying. Every day it feels like I've got random issues with tech stuff while these companies sink billions into AI
if microsoft just made outlook search not suck they'd see triple the productivity gains of any AI integration
November 14, 2025 at 8:24 AM
There are thousands of things like this in tech. Why is search bad in Gmail. Why does Bluetooth suck. Why are most streaming apps bad. Why is file transfer still annoying. Every day it feels like I've got random issues with tech stuff while these companies sink billions into AI
Reposted by MrBarrington
A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.
Baudelaire
Baudelaire
November 13, 2025 at 2:30 PM
A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.
Baudelaire
Baudelaire
Reposted by MrBarrington
How high are OpenAI’s compute costs? Possibly a lot higher than we thought on.ft.com/43qoQ2L
How high are OpenAI’s compute costs? Possibly a lot higher than we thought
Inference inferred, revenue reconstructed, cash burn quantified
on.ft.com
November 12, 2025 at 5:46 PM
How high are OpenAI’s compute costs? Possibly a lot higher than we thought on.ft.com/43qoQ2L