Mark

@manderson
431 Followers
1.1K Following
1.3K Posts
Educator, Reader, Thinker, Writer, Runner
Language and Literacy Bloghttps://languageandliteracy.blog/
Schools & Ecosystems Bloghttps://schoolecosystem.wordpress.com

"To decipher the rules, Crist’s team programmed two AI agents to play the game over and over again using more than 100 different sets of rules taken from other known European games, both ancient and modern. As the AI agents played—1,000 games per set of rules—the researchers tracked how the pieces moved. Then they compared the moves with the levels of wear on areas of the board, tracing which gameplay seemed to replicate grooves on the stone."

#AI #games

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rules-of-mysterious-ancient-roman-board-game-decoded-by-ai/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TIS_021026&utm_term=mysterious%20ancient%20Roman%20stone%20board%20game&_kx=DqSvWh0KznE5KEdX94WUuqP9BcnLS3IYdcERGLooM0U.WEer5A

Rules of mysterious ancient Roman board game decoded by AI

A Roman stone board game has been unplayable since its discovery more than a century ago, but AI might have just worked out the rules

Scientific American

Each time I see cycleways & paths still treacherous hours after the roads have been cleared, I recall this 99% Invisible episode.

"In Sweden, the council reversed its approach and plowed side-roads & paths first. It had a huge impact, reducing number of people admitted to emergency centres, particularly women. It had an economic impact from lower healthcare costs. Driving through a few inches was less dangerous than walking through snow, particularly if pushing a pram."

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/invisible-women/

Invisible Women - 99% Invisible

Snow plowing patterns seem an unlikely subject of a gender study conducted in a small town in Sweden. After all, the town’s approach appeared logical and neutral enough on the surface: plow major roads first, particularly those leading into and out of town, followed by smaller local streets. It is the same sequence played out

99% Invisible
The sound of "belching" in Slovak!
#language #linguistics #onomatopoeia #maps
Want to Reach Nirvana? Try a Colonoscopy.

It turns out that despite everything you’ve heard, getting a colonoscopy is wonderful.

The New York Times
I'm not saying the Trump administration is turning the US into a dystopian hellscape, but when the local newspaper needs to help you identify what toxic gas Federal agents are unleashing on citizens, I think it speaks for itself.

We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:

"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."

"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."

PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:

-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’

-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.

https://www.privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/5713/trump-administration-wants-your-dna-and-social-media

The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than February 9, 2026) to be assured of consideration.

Federal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf

Obviously, being active on Mastodon is the healthiest of all sitting activities… 😉

Not All Sitting Is Equal. One Type Was Just Linked to Better Brain Health.

https://www.sciencealert.com/not-all-sitting-is-equal-one-type-was-just-linked-to-better-brain-health

#article #science #research #brain #neuroscience #knowledge #info #information #reading #health #mastodon

Not All Sitting Is Equal. One Type Was Just Linked to Better Brain Health.

Excessive sitting isn't good for a person's physical or mental health, but there's a type of sedentary activity that may not shrink our brains or cost our cognition to the same extent.

ScienceAlert

"RFK Jr. doesn’t have a weird voice because of vaccines. And it’s not genetic either. It’s #heroin voice. He has a weird voice because he used to be a junkie."

https://crookedtimber.org/2026/01/24/a-very-short-post-about-heroin-voice/

A short post about heroin voice — Crooked Timber

“Men drink more, binge-drink more and generally do dumber things when impaired,” said Tim Naimi, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and another author of the alcohol report.

For Men, How Much Alcohol Is Too Much? - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/health/alcohol-men-women.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20260124&instance_id=170052&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=69018837&segment_id=214250&user_id=ec870e4e4c6dd97cf2dea7bd6edeffae

For Men, How Much Alcohol Is Too Much?

Federal officials working on the new dietary guidelines had considered limiting men to one drink daily. The final advice was only that everyone should drink less.

The New York Times

"FastRender is effectively using a full browser rendering engine as a "hello world" exercise for multi-agent coordination!"

#AI

Wilson Lin on FastRender: a browser built by thousands of parallel agents
https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/23/fastrender/

Wilson Lin on FastRender: a browser built by thousands of parallel agents

Last week Cursor published Scaling long-running autonomous coding, an article describing their research efforts into coordinating large numbers of autonomous coding agents. One of the projects mentioned in the article …

Simon Willison’s Weblog