Terra Ignota

Too Like The Lightning
Seven Surrenders
The Will to Battle
Perhaps the Stars

New York City: Tor, 2016-2021

Ada Palmer

I wrote a review of the first part of Ada Palmer's novel (it's very much one book in four volumes) back when I read it in 2018. I caught up …

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The too hard basket

Today's a one-off national public holiday to mourn Queen Elizabeth II. Since I'm no longer on Twitter I feel a bit insulated from the usual wave of discourse which events like this set off: the nearest I've come to it is seeing someone pose in a bandana on Facebook with …

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No One is Talking About This

No One is Talking About This, London: Bloomsbury, 2021

Patricia Lockwood

I finished this in a couple of days and it was funny and touching—people probably think of Lockwood as a Twitter phenomenon but she'd have been a good writer no matter what platform she'd made her own. Mostly …

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Spuds

A couple of months ago I got a bit obsessed with this recurring question on Metafilter from people who can't or won't learn to cook and are keen to know if a single food will supply all human dietary requirements. It's been asked so often that it gets its own …

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tl;dr 2

Thinking about yesterday's post and whether it really went anywhere, and whether the same criticism I levelled at the waffly IT blog post might be levelled at my own writing here, which doesn't need to come up to any real standards of coherence or clarity. That's what editors are for …

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tl;dr

Setting aside the question of whether LaMDA is sentient, or whether the Turing Test is valid, or whether general AI is possible or likely—there are a lot very strongly held opinions on the matter out there if you want to go looking for them—I've been thinking about what …

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Metaphysical Animals

Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

London: Chatto and Windus, 2022

Claire Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman

I bought this as soon as I saw it, after having read a review of it in the LRB - it follows the lives and careers of Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth …

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