Category Archives: Micro

Posts that go to to micro.blogs/johnjohnston

Posted on
by
Listened Feeding the People in Wartime Britain From National Kitchens to British Restaurants by Jeremy Cherfas from eatthispodcast.com
At the same time, during both World War One and World War Two, there were concerted efforts to feed people. It started with centrally cooked meals that people took home to eat, but soon blossomed into a far-reaching network of government-run restaurants.

Another really interesting episode from Jeremy Cherfas. I’d never heard of the British Restaurants that were more common in the midst of WW2 than MacDonalds are now. Where they came from, what happened in different places and the possibility of a return were all covered.

Posted on
by

In reply to So long, Twitter API, and thanks for all the fish by Ryan Barrett.

Well, it’s come to this. Twitter is burning, a billionaire owes money, an API will soon get lobotomized, so Bridgy‘s Twitter support will die within the month.

A lot of the reactions on my blog come from Twitter thanks to Bridgy. A marvellous service. I really disliked it when Twitter swallowed comments, then Bridgy came to the rescue. Thanks so much for all of Bridgy.

Posted on
by

Ollie Brae’s tweet, leads to Game Over for Maths A-level — Conrad Wolfram

The combination of ChatGPT with its Wolfram plug-in just scored 96% in a UK Maths A-level paper, the exam taken at the end of school, as a crucial metric for university entrance. (That compares to 43% for ChatGPT alone).

Wrong conclusion: ban it. Right conclusion: change what humans are learning so they step up a level, and don’t compete with what AIs do well.

Wolfram goes on to explain that an overhaul of the math curriculum is long overdue, and quotes himself from 3 years ago:

Today’s ecosystem of education doesn’t easily support such subject change. From assessments tied to today’s subjects, to too short a time horizon, to evidence-led innovation rather than innovation-led evidence, there’s everything to prevent core subject change and seemingly nothing to promote it. Except, eventually, after much disarray, cold, hard failure.

My hi-light. Seeing “evidence-led innovation” as part of the problem was interesting.