Alan Jacobs

Angus’s new photo for his LinkedIn page 

Umberto Eco on the importance of editors:

Take the usually overlooked fact that the first version of a well-known poem by Philip Larkin originally went: “They do you harm, your father and mother.” It was only the insistence of Larkin’s editor that inspired the now famous variant. And the first draft of Eliot’s Waste Land opened: “April is the cruelest month. And March isn’t all that great, either.” Weakened in its impact by this peevish insistence on climactic details, the earlier text denied April any implied link with the rites of vegetation. As everyone knows, Ariosto at first submitted to his publisher a very brief poem that went: “Of women and knights, arms, loves, courtly rituals, and bold ventures I have nothing to say.” And that was that. “How about developing it a bit?” the editor suggested. And Master Ludovico, who was having enough trouble as civil governor of a remote Tuscan province, said, “What’s the use? There are dozens of epics of chivalry already. Leave it. I want to urge poets to try new genres.” And the editor replied, “Yes, of course, I understand, and, personally, I agree with you. But why not try approaching the form from another angle? With irony, for instance. Anyway, we can’t sell a onepage book, particularly one with only two verses on the page. It looks like imitation Mallarmé. It would have to be a limited, numbered edition. So unless we can get Philip Morris to sponsor it, we’re screwed.”

Introducing study mode | OpenAI:

Today we’re introducing study mode in ChatGPT — a learning experience that helps you work through problems step by step instead of just getting an answer. Starting today, it’s available to logged in users on Free, Plus, Pro, Team, with availability in ChatGPT Edu coming in the next few weeks. 

So, a mode no one will ever use, then. 

I married this wonderful life-giving life-preserving woman forty-five years ago today. The best thing that ever happened to me. 

I remember quite vividly the day in 1974 when this showed up in the mail, a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. It was my introduction to Le Guin and anarchism. 

Max Bennett:

Humans may have also evolved a unique hardwired instinct to ask questions to inquire about the inner simulations of others. Even Kanzi and the other apes that acquired impressively sophisticated language abilities never asked even the simplest questions about others. They would request food and play but would not inquire about another’s inner mental world. Even before human children can construct grammatical sentences, they will ask others questions: “Want this?” “Hungry?” All languages use the same rising intonation when asking yes/no questions. When you hear someone speak in a language you do not understand, you can still identify when you are being asked a question. This instinct to understand how to designate a question may also be a key part of our language curriculum.

Adrian explains how he got this shot

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End - The Atlantic:

Three-fourths of American scientists who responded to a recent poll by the journal Nature said they are considering leaving the country. They don’t lack for suitors. China is aggressively recruiting them, and the European Union has set aside a €500 million slush fund to do the same. National governments in Norway, Denmark, and France—nice places to live, all—have green-lighted spending sprees on disillusioned American scientists. The Max Planck Society, Germany’s elite research organization, recently launched a poaching campaign in the U.S., and last month, France’s Aix-Marseille University held a press conference announcing the arrival of eight American “science refugees.”

The MIT scientist who is thinking about leaving the U.S. told me that the Swiss scientific powerhouse ETH Zurich had already reached out about relocating her lab to its picturesque campus with a view of the Alps. A top Canadian university had also been in touch. These institutions are salivating over American talent, and so are others. Not since [Roald] Sagdeev and other elite Soviet researchers were looking to get out of Moscow has there been a mass-recruiting opportunity like this.