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How do we define furniture? It might seem like a silly question, but it’s one that kept coming up in October of last year, when, in a conference room on the 15th floor of The New York Times building, six experts — the architects and interior designers Rafael de Cárdenas and Daniel Romualdez; the Museum of Modern Art’sContinue Reading The post THE MOST DEFINING PIECES OF FURNITURE FROM THE LAST 100 YEARS first appeared on Melissa Penfold. The post THE MOST DEFINING PIECES OF FURNITURE FROM THE LAST 100 YEARS appeared first on Melissa Penfold.
There’s a fairly well-established list of the things that wedding guests detest. Overly long ceremonies. Overly long toasts. Cash bars. A bachelor or bachelorette trip that sends its attendees into credit-card debt. A destination wedding in a remote locale that the couple has zero relationship to and that plunges its guests into further bankruptcy. But what about allContinue Reading The post THE THINGS YOUR WEDDING GUESTS SECRETLY DESPISE first appeared on Melissa Penfold. The post THE THINGS YOUR WEDDING GUESTS SECRETLY DESPISE appeared first on Melissa Penfold.
We’re always here to help you find gifts that elicit “you really know me!” enthusiasm, even from the normally taciturn. This year, we aimed higher, aspiring to choose items with such eternal appeal, and of such high quality, that some might become heirlooms—used and loved by both your giftees and subsequent generations. Find our updated,Continue Reading The post THE MOST THOUGHTFUL GIFTS THAT NO ONE ELSE WILL GIVE first appeared on Melissa Penfold. The post THE MOST THOUGHTFUL GIFTS THAT NO ONE ELSE WILL GIVE appeared first on Melissa Penfold.
Style manifested in many forms over the last 12 months, as well as in our homes and gardens with the way we decorate, entertain, and live. Of course style – and trends – are subjective, not to mention a subject of heated discussion – but each of the trends we discuss for the year aheadContinue Reading The post 2025 PREDICTIONS ARE IN: DESIGN FORECAST FOR THE WHOLE HOUSE first appeared on Melissa Penfold. The post 2025 PREDICTIONS ARE IN: DESIGN FORECAST FOR THE WHOLE HOUSE appeared first on Melissa Penfold.
It’s a bargain hunter’s paradise at Isabella Walker-Smith’s bumper Christmas Collection which has stacks of table lamps in the style of Christian Liaigre, Kelly Wearstler, Ralph Lauren, and Aerin, from $80. There are quality travertine lamps, $280 a pair, and adorable rattan lamps with bamboo bases, $140 a pair. Many are detailed to fab effect. Continue Reading The post ISABELLA’S INCREDIBLE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION first appeared on Melissa Penfold. The post ISABELLA’S INCREDIBLE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION appeared first on Melissa Penfold.
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This by no means a definitive list, so don’t @ me! AI is an inescapable subject. There’s obviously an incredible headwind behind the computing progress of the last handful of years — not to mention the usual avarice — but there has also been nearly a century of thought put toward artificial intelligence. If you want to have a more robust understanding of what is at work beneath, say, the OpenAI chat box, pick any one of these texts. Each one would be worth a read — even a skim (this is by no means light reading). At the very least, familiarizing yourself with the intellectual path leading to now will help you navigate the funhouse of overblown marketing bullshit filling the internet right now, especially as it pertains to AGI. Read what the heavyweights had to say about it and you’ll see how many semantic games are being played while also moving the goalposts. Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) — Gregory Bateson. Through imagined dialogues with his daughter, Bateson explores how minds emerge from systems of information and communication, providing crucial insights for understanding artificial intelligence. The Sciences of the Artificial (1969) — Herbert Simon examines how artificial systems, including AI, differ from natural ones and introduces key concepts about bounded rationality. The Emperor’s New Mind (1989) — Roger Penrose. While arguing against strong AI, provides valuable insights into consciousness and computation that remain relevant to current AI discussions. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979) — Douglas Hofstadter weaves together mathematics, art, and music to explore consciousness, self-reference, and emergent intelligence. Though not explicitly about AI, it provides fundamental insights into how complex cognition might emerge from simple rules and patterns. Perceptrons (1969) — Marvin Minsky & Seymour Papert. This controversial critique of neural networks temporarily halted research in the field but ultimately helped establish its theoretical foundations. Minsky and Papert’s mathematical analysis revealed both the limitations and potential of early neural networks. The Society of Mind (1986) — Marvin Minsky proposes that intelligence emerges from the interaction of simple agents working together, rather than from a single unified system. This theoretical framework remains relevant to understanding both human cognition and artificial intelligence. Computers and Thought (1963) — Edward Feigenbaum & Julian Feldman (editors) This is the first collection of articles about artificial intelligence, featuring contributions from pioneers like Herbert Simon and Allen Newell. It captures the foundational ideas and optimism of early AI research. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (1995) — Stuart Russell & Peter Norvig. This comprehensive textbook defined how AI would be taught for decades. It presents AI as rational agent design rather than human intelligence simulation, a framework that still influences the field. Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950) — Alan Turing’s paper introduces the Turing Test and addresses fundamental questions about machine intelligence that we’re still grappling with today. It’s remarkable how many current AI debates were anticipated in this work. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948) — Norbert Wiener established the theoretical groundwork for understanding control systems in both machines and living things. His insights about feedback loops and communication remain crucial to understanding AI systems.
My thoughts about the Zettelkasten (Slip box) note taking methodology invented by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.
Chinese interior studio Various Associates has completed an irregular pyramid-shaped flagship store for drone brand DJI in Shenzhen, China. Located...
John Gruber has a post about how Google’s search results now require JavaScript[1]. Why? Here’s Google: the change is intended to “better protect” Google Search against malicious activity, such as bots and spam Lol, the irony. Let’s turn to JavaScript for protection, as if the entire ad-based tracking/analytics world born out of JavaScript’s capabilities isn’t precisely what led to a less secure, less private, more exploited web. But whatever, “the web” is Google’s product so they can do what they want with it — right? Here’s John: Old original Google was a company of and for the open web. Post 2010-or-so Google is a company that sees the web as a de facto proprietary platform that it owns and controls. Those who experience the web through Google Chrome and Google Search are on that proprietary not-closed-per-se-but-not-really-open web. Search that requires JavaScript won’t cause the web to die. But it’s a sign of what’s to come (emphasis mine): Requiring JavaScript for Google Search is not about the fact that 99.9 percent of humans surfing the web have JavaScript enabled in their browsers. It’s about taking advantage of that fact to tightly control client access to Google Search results. But the nature of the true open web is that the server sticks to the specs for the HTTP protocol and the HTML content format, and clients are free to interpret that as they see fit. Original, novel, clever ways to do things with website output is what made the web so thrilling, fun, useful, and amazing. This JavaScript mandate is Google’s attempt at asserting that it will only serve search results to exactly the client software that it sees fit to serve. Requiring JavaScript is all about control. The web was founded on the idea of open access for all. But since that’s been completely and utterly abused (see LLM training datasets) we’re gonna lose it. The whole “freemium with ads” model that underpins the web was exploited for profit by AI at an industrial scale and that’s causing the “free and open web” to become the “paid and private web”. Universal access is quickly becoming select access — Google search results included. If you want to go down a rabbit hole of reading more about this, there’s the TechCrunch article John cites, a Hacker News thread, and this post from a company founded on providing search APIs. ⏎ Email :: Mastodon :: Bluesky #generalNotes
Kedrovka is a brand of plant-based milk crafted for those who care about their health, value natural ingredients, and seek...
