Claude Willan
@claudewillan.bsky.social
C18th stuff, DH, dad stuff, ex-pat things, poems, material culture, perfume, etc
UK-CA-NJ-TX-PA-UK. Durham.
Opinions are mine alone and do not represent my employer.
UK-CA-NJ-TX-PA-UK. Durham.
Opinions are mine alone and do not represent my employer.
I'm so embarrassed. There was "wildfarmed"flour in the M&S luxury hot cross buns and they tasted different and I spent a lot of time wondering about foraging for flour and how on earth that would work. I was had.
November 10, 2025 at 10:24 AM
I'm so embarrassed. There was "wildfarmed"flour in the M&S luxury hot cross buns and they tasted different and I spent a lot of time wondering about foraging for flour and how on earth that would work. I was had.
All youth seems paradise lost, but this is a real one
November 9, 2025 at 3:30 PM
All youth seems paradise lost, but this is a real one
I live in a HP-coded town where some filming and theres a small amount of tat around; the uninterest around her evil baffles me. My 5yo son asked for some in a shop today. When i said no and briefly why the fellow customers of The Works were Very Disappointed In My Parenting.
November 8, 2025 at 9:39 PM
I live in a HP-coded town where some filming and theres a small amount of tat around; the uninterest around her evil baffles me. My 5yo son asked for some in a shop today. When i said no and briefly why the fellow customers of The Works were Very Disappointed In My Parenting.
It is witty about the volta, too. Lovely. And the doomed youth reference somehow feeels almost too much or too close when it finally comes. Thank you for sharing this.
November 8, 2025 at 9:32 PM
It is witty about the volta, too. Lovely. And the doomed youth reference somehow feeels almost too much or too close when it finally comes. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you so much to everyone who came @cam.ac.uk yesterday! Really generous listeners, and an especially convivial and collaborative q and a that pushed the project further in lots of directions. I had a wonderful time!
November 7, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Thank you so much to everyone who came @cam.ac.uk yesterday! Really generous listeners, and an especially convivial and collaborative q and a that pushed the project further in lots of directions. I had a wonderful time!
At this point I was party to the theft of enough water for several steak dinners, and i turned it off. But it made me think that our focus on whether something is "intelligent" is a category error.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
At this point I was party to the theft of enough water for several steak dinners, and i turned it off. But it made me think that our focus on whether something is "intelligent" is a category error.
It can't wait, or suffer- it can't be selfish or self-sacrificing. It is not agential in any meaningful sense. Its lavish praise made me more and more uneasy, as I was more and more transparently its mark.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
It can't wait, or suffer- it can't be selfish or self-sacrificing. It is not agential in any meaningful sense. Its lavish praise made me more and more uneasy, as I was more and more transparently its mark.
What I want from a reader's critique is precisely that-- how can i configure the symbolic space to suggest one relation or another to the commons. This is a meaningless phrase to Anthropic's machine, because it has no relation to that commons. It can't, by definition.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
What I want from a reader's critique is precisely that-- how can i configure the symbolic space to suggest one relation or another to the commons. This is a meaningless phrase to Anthropic's machine, because it has no relation to that commons. It can't, by definition.
It was unquestionably intelligent in that it had the capacity to, say, go looking for slips in tense. But it had no mind at all, because it could not imagine that an artwork is a discrete symbolic space with a regulated relation to the commons we all live in.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
It was unquestionably intelligent in that it had the capacity to, say, go looking for slips in tense. But it had no mind at all, because it could not imagine that an artwork is a discrete symbolic space with a regulated relation to the commons we all live in.
It was incapable of conceiving of the artwork as a formal artefact, instead, it wrote like a bad english student, parsing the story as a montage of ethical statements. It knows words and concepts drawn from or alluding to form, but cannot operationalise them. Literary form is a black box to it.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
It was incapable of conceiving of the artwork as a formal artefact, instead, it wrote like a bad english student, parsing the story as a montage of ethical statements. It knows words and concepts drawn from or alluding to form, but cannot operationalise them. Literary form is a black box to it.
I eventually got it to critique. It pointed out 4 tense slips, of which three were reported speech and one was an actual mistake. It pointed out what it thought was a problem with the magic system, which it didnt understand. What struck me was that every change I proposed it lauded as improvement.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
I eventually got it to critique. It pointed out 4 tense slips, of which three were reported speech and one was an actual mistake. It pointed out what it thought was a problem with the magic system, which it didnt understand. What struck me was that every change I proposed it lauded as improvement.
I had clarified that I had written it and every change i suggested it praised to the skies. I told it to stop, it didn't. So, theodicy of the customer--so far so normal.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
I had clarified that I had written it and every change i suggested it praised to the skies. I told it to stop, it didn't. So, theodicy of the customer--so far so normal.
for my kids' nature/fantasy adventure. Which made me laugh but made me wonder how an LLM would deal with a new piece fiction outside of its training set. That I had written.
So i fed it to anthropic and asked its opinion, asked it to give me a critique. It didnt want to.
So i fed it to anthropic and asked its opinion, asked it to give me a critique. It didnt want to.
November 7, 2025 at 11:05 AM
for my kids' nature/fantasy adventure. Which made me laugh but made me wonder how an LLM would deal with a new piece fiction outside of its training set. That I had written.
So i fed it to anthropic and asked its opinion, asked it to give me a critique. It didnt want to.
So i fed it to anthropic and asked its opinion, asked it to give me a critique. It didnt want to.
Oh my god thats the BEST idea!!!!! Im in!
November 7, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Oh my god thats the BEST idea!!!!! Im in!
Im sure you know about and maybe have even written about these, but i just found out the other day about MOLLY HOUSE and JOHN COMPANY. I was SO excited but sadly do not currently live an immersive-boardgame-compatible life
November 7, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Im sure you know about and maybe have even written about these, but i just found out the other day about MOLLY HOUSE and JOHN COMPANY. I was SO excited but sadly do not currently live an immersive-boardgame-compatible life
One of the greats, up there with mcdonalds in the lincoln room
November 7, 2025 at 10:26 AM
One of the greats, up there with mcdonalds in the lincoln room
For the actual substance, I'm as you know more sympathetic to a different tradition that sees meaningful ends and dead ends as entirely condign categories. Im not an EAist precisely because i think its a category error (at best) to presume to know, always, what counts as altruism.
November 6, 2025 at 1:14 PM
For the actual substance, I'm as you know more sympathetic to a different tradition that sees meaningful ends and dead ends as entirely condign categories. Im not an EAist precisely because i think its a category error (at best) to presume to know, always, what counts as altruism.
I enjoyed this exploration as far as it went. But it seems to woefully misrepresent the crisis, or is at least silent about the mountainous corporate consolidation the crisis is enabling.
November 6, 2025 at 1:14 PM
I enjoyed this exploration as far as it went. But it seems to woefully misrepresent the crisis, or is at least silent about the mountainous corporate consolidation the crisis is enabling.
You're a woman who dares to speak and show expertise. They don't like that. Block them all.
November 5, 2025 at 2:11 PM
You're a woman who dares to speak and show expertise. They don't like that. Block them all.