Theophile Escargot

@TheoEsc
351 Followers
310 Following
4.7K Posts
TheoEsc on Twitter; TheophileEscargot on Metafilter,HuSi & Flickr. Programmer,reader,Londoner,father,runner. Diary: https://www.hulver.com/scoop/user/TheophileEscargot
PronounsHe, him
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The #Transformers Timelines That Didn't Deserve to Die (27 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x8SO4l3bsc
Star Wars Transformers! Marvel Transformers! Go-Bot Transformers! Belgian Transformers!
The Transformers Timelines That Didn't Deserve to Die

YouTube
A certified poet from Slough,
Whose methods of rhyming were rough,
Retorted, “I see
That the letters agree
And if that’s not sufficient I’m through.”
— Clifford Witting
https://www.futilitycloset.com/2026/04/09/limerick-23/
Limerick - Futility Closet

A certified poet from Slough, Whose methods of rhyming were rough, Retorted, “I see That the letters agree And if that’s not sufficient I’m through.” — Clifford Witting

Futility Closet
“As companies grow, they all end up with more and more layers of collaboration, review, and management. Why? Because otherwise mistakes get made, and mistakes are increasingly expensive at scale. The average value added by a new feature eventually becomes lower than the average value lost through the new bugs it causes. So, lacking a way to make features produce more value (wouldn't that be nice!), we try to at least reduce the damage.”
https://apenwarr.ca/log/20260316
Every layer of review makes you 10x slower

We’ve all heard of those network effect laws: the value of a network goes up with the square of the number of members. Or the cost of commun...

This, from @minaskar, is particularly lucid and insightful:

https://ergosphere.blog/posts/the-machines-are-fine/

The machines are fine. I'm worried about us.

On AI agents, grunt work, and the part of science that isn't replaceable.

There is a little-known far-right political party registered in Scotland, with politics similar to Reform. It doesn’t really operate as a party. It seeks no publicity, delivers no leaflets, does no canvassing. It lies low and does zero campaigning, avoiding attention, hoping not to be noticed … until polling day.
Its plan is that on polling day, voters quickly scanning down the list of parties will put their cross against one that superficially looks like the Greens. (1/4)
Schumpeter’s Death: You’re Not Worried Enough About AI
https://kritikpunkt.com/schumpeters-death-youre-not-worried-enough-about-ai/
Schumpeter's Death: You're Not Worried Enough About AI | Kritikpunkt

AI will intensify the class contradiction and its outward effects to a degree that cannot be compared with any other crisis of the past decades.

Kritikpunkt
Am I getting addicted to podcasts I wondered this morning, putting on T-shirt then jumper then headphones so I don't lose podcast time while putting on my pants
Just because the allegation is always trumpeted everywhere and the retraction always buried: Police say there was no evidence for a "Family Voting" charge in the Gorton and Denton by-election. https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2026/03/28/reform-con-job/
https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-starmer-labour-iran-trump-cobra-12593360?postid=11419214#liveblog-body
So-called 'family voting' exposed as a Reform con job

Reform wanted us to believe they got hammered in Gorton & Denton because Muslim women were bullied into not voting for the Islamophobia party

Canary
Good news from the world of Microsoft Teams usability! It now pops up a label saying either "Enter starts a new line" or "Shift+Enter starts a new line" depending on which of the mysterious and invisible modes it's decided to put you in!
Bret Devereaux of ACOUP comments on the war: https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/ "a fairly classic escalation trap: once the conflict starts, it is extremely costly for either side to ever back down, which ensures that the conflict continues long past it being in the interests of either party"
Miscellanea: The War in Iran

This post is a set of my observations on the current war in Iran and my thoughts on the broader strategic implications. I am not, of course, an expert on the region nor do I have access to any spec…

A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry