Getting rid of teachers because we all have chatbots is like getting rid of doctors because we all have the plague.

Cory’s latest is very good on good and bad uses of LLMs, and why discernment is key to using them well.

I need to excise the word ‘though’ from my vocabulary, like I’ve just had to excise several instances of it from this morning’s post. It is clearly my most overused word.

Watched: Babylon 5: The Road Home 🎥

This animated sequel-of-sorts to the wonderful Babylon 5 TV series was released a few years ago, and I somehow missed out on the news. Heard about it a few months ago and was reminded again yesterday.

It’s good enough, but mainly for the chance to spend some more time with beloved characters. It doesn’t add anything to the overall story, nor detract from it. One for the fans.

It is undeniable that Wales has the world’s coolest flag.

It’s not exactly Danny Boyle’s 2012 masterpiece so far, is it?

Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony is on Channel 5, but makes heavy use of Doctor Who? Weird.

The most intriguing thing for me about this alternative way of looking at The Great Wave is that I had never before realised there were boats in it!

Here's the original (first photo) and flipped (second). The idea is that since Japanese is read right-to-left, English speakers accustomed to left-to-right reading should see how it looks flipped, where it looks more like the boats are heading into the intimidating waves.

Watched: Billion Dollar Brain 🎥.

The third Harry Palmer film, and considerably more bizarre and confusing than the the first or second. Also a Ken Russell film, so that’s probably why. A mad Texan oil billionaire with a private army tries to trigger a third world war, basically

That BBC self-ad at half time of the World Cup Final was OK, but Mitch Benn did it better years ago with ‘I’m Proud of the BBC’ (YouTube link).

I have no idea how Dave Winer comes to this conclusion:

One of the silver linings of AI use is that it makes you a better writer.

Especially when one of the main things people (at least non-programmers) tout it for is doing your writing for you!

Watched: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason 🎥.

I was sure I hadn’t seen it before, but I remembered some scenes as they happened. I have a vague memory of a DVD in a holiday house, perhaps. Partial falling asleep may have been involved.

It’s daft but fun in places.

This from @JohnPhilpin sounds like reviews by John Clute in Interzone back in the day:

👁️ That moment when you open a blog post and you need to look up 4 words just in the first sentence.

Source: https://john.philpin.com/2026/06/25/that-moment-when-you-open.html

Well that was a bloody waste of time! Don’t know why I stayed up for that.

Minute Cryptic - 24 June, 2026 “Hermit perhaps returning alone, wandering city” (9) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 3 under the community par (81,255 solvers so far). www.minutecryptic.com

Tough one, this. My first instinct was right, but I made a wrong guess.

This is what we’re faced with as the year hinges into its second half. Astronomically, if not by the calendar.

Just realised I hadn’t added Moby Dick to my ‘currently reading’ list. I’m only about a third in, totally loving it, and wondering why people think it’s hard. 📚

God, there are a lot of Scots in Boston! Listen to that!

Going to see Richard Dawkins at the Barbican tonight. The title of his talk is ‘Genes & the Meaning of Life’. It’ll be interesting to see — among other things — if his beliefs about the aliveness of ‘AI’ have changed.

Sad to read of the death of Anthony Head (or Anthony Stewart Head, as he always used to be credited).

We watched North by Northwest 🎥 a week or two ago. Somehow I’d never seen it before.

Let’s discuss the famous, poster-worthy, famous scene. Clearly if you believe someone is a government agent about to bust your soviet spy ring, you have to assassinate them. And what better way to do that than trick them into catching a bus to a bus stop on the open prairie, miles from anywhere; and then chase them with a crop-spraying plane and try to shoot them from it?

Many better ways. Many, many better ways.

I didn’t realise Hitchcock was making a farce. Well, maybe that’s unfair. It’s a kind-of spy story, it’s kind of a romance, it’s pretty funny in places. In fact, its main flaw may be that it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. And that it spells things out too much. We, the viewer, can work some things out: have a little more respect for us, Alfred.

All that said, I enjoyed it quite a lot.