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Donella H. Meadows in Thinking in Systems:

Hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, economic instability, unemployment, chronic disease, drug addiction, and war, for example, persist in spite of the analytical ability and technical brilliance that have been directed toward eradicating them. No one deliberately creates those problems, no one wants them to persist, but they persist nonetheless. That is because they are intrinsically systems problems-undesirable behaviors characteristic of the system structures that produce them.

Very interesting book and a reminder to think outside the box of simplicity.

Economical writing by Deirdre McClosky is an excellent book of 35 rules for clear prose. In the final chapter she quotes Mark Twain’s seven rules for good style.

The writer should

say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it;

use the right word, not its second cousin;

eschew surplusage;

not omit necessary details;

avoid slovenliness of form;

use good grammar; and

employ a simple and straightforward style.

These seven are worth following, as are McClosky’s thirty-five.

Simon Willison’s principles for link blogs: include names, add value, be liberal with quotes. Why? One reason is that

Sharing interesting links with commentary is a low effort, high value way to contribute to internet life at large.

Simon Willison wrote a good overview of LLMs at the end of 2024:

“The key skill in getting the most out of LLMs is learning to work with tech that is both inherently unreliable and incredibly powerful at the same time. This is a decidedly non-obvious skill to acquire!”

The cathedral in Skálholt is a magical place.

This week I picked up a complete set of Icelandic folklore and adventures, collected by Jón Árnason. Six volumes of insights. Food for thought for a few weeks or even months.