Not an ideal day but a pretty good one. Tunbridge Wells public library, a library card, and a laptop.

Wordle 1,522 3/6* ⬛🟩🟨⬛⬛ 🟩🟩⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html Minute Cryptic - 19 August, 2025 (this one had a straightforward but satisfying clue, unlike my night's sleep which was truly dreadful.) "Two couples start to fight? Oh you are noisy!" (4) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 2 under par https://www.minutecryptic.com/ https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=uxTdTaNIUxo

https://medium.com/@adnanmasood/breaking-the-sorting-barrier-why-a-new-shortest-path-algorithm-matters-even-if-you-still-love-7bad07c71b88

Wordle 1,521 3/6* ⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛ 🟨⬛🟨⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html Minute Cryptic - 18 August, 2025 (I saw someone discussing an asylum seeker hotel protest on Facebook, and it's easy to dismiss those views as Fringe views, John Noble's Walter Bishop was sublime, but I was thinking about control, or lack of control, that makes specific things you can do something about more attractive to protest against than protesting about nebulous things that are more complicated. So, on face value, an asylum seeker is alleged, there is no further evidence given, to have commited an awful crime. No doubt some asylum seekers do commit awful crimes, because they're people and some people do commit awful crimes. No further evidence was supplied. My local newspaper has an "in the courts" section and most of the crimes are not committed by asylum seekers‡. It could be that asylum seekers disproportionately commit awful crimes but I don't think that's the case. Questions arise about a whole series of moments leading up to this point in the life of each of the people demonstrating, in a rich country, that they're protesting about things they can do something about, rather than things they can't, and why those people may be attractive to people who want them to demonstrate. The failures of the country itself as a cause of symptoms is a trickier proposition. Fringe was definitely one of the best popularly placed science fiction shows, had popular appeal, and Easter eggs from the start, that put Fringe on a par with the X-Files. Like the UK and Canada, Australia seems to excel at exporting good actors to rich countries. Fringe is currently on ITV-X if you're in the UK and can't be bothered demonstrating.) "Temperamental electric air conditioning unit starts malfunctioning under 90 degrees" (5) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 2 under par https://www.minutecryptic.com/ https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=lqYyr3ZG4uA ‡ https://www.kentlive.news/all-about/courts

Wordle 1,519 3/6* ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html Minute Cryptic - 16 August, 2025 (I slept like a log. I like sleeping like a log. I would like to stay in bed but real life is not just an intrusive thought and, besides, I want breakfast. I'm not sure if lack of empathy is a mental illness, and lack of empathy can be affected, or peer pressure influenced like an internet witch hunt, but, despite the song I don't want to trivialise mental health problems in any form. I have been there and my message to anyone suffering such problems is that other people know how you feel and care deeply about you getting through it because you getting through it makes their world, and therefore your world, better. Many people care even if you don't know them, things will change because change is inevitable and there are flickers of light in the dark even when they're hard to see. That said, I know, at least, 4 ladies like the lady in this song and I'm OK with them. So don't be too rude about my unforced empathy or admissions of weakness.) "Dry showerhead? Ring plumber fruitlessly" (5) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 2 under par https://www.minutecryptic.com/ https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=X_85LnPpg6c

The age of steam and coal did eventually give way to alternatives. https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.02886

Wordle 1,518 4/6* ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html Minute Cryptic - 15 August, 2025 (The worldle in that pattern is almost synchronicity. Although, I don't think almost synchronicity counts, 'almost' most things is like a pleasant, or not so pleasant, advertisment or reminder for most things. It was almost cheese, it almost killed me, I have almost solved it, it's almost a …, there is a large, and probably non exhaustive list of almosts. I'd take almost the best cheese if the alternative was almost the almost best cheese which is bounded by the best cheese at the top and almost cheese at the bottom. With potentially lots of "almost the" in between. Given the subjectivity involved maybe an infinite number although I don't think people are that interesting and assuming all adults on planet tried the same cheese and had slightly different perceptions of it that would be something significantly under 5 billion nested "almost the" because not everyone likes or eats any given cheese, answers would be quantised by the use of language or subjective numerical scales and clusters would form. I haven't thought it through and I want breakfast.) "Supply at party is unusually billed?" (8) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 3 under par https://www.minutecryptic.com/ https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=JG0fgLIWZzc

Reed-Solomon codes. CDs & Voyager. The chatbots I tried got that wrong and answered in terms so general it looked like it guessed from an encyclopedia and the internet. Which, in technical terms, is roughly what they did.

Perplexity AI: What percentage of tencent's revenue is spent on programmers? https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-percentage-of-tencent-s-r-b1Q5x7GpTEyI7SbiUPcltg

Wordle 1,516 4/6* ⬛🟨⬛🟨⬛ ⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨 🟨⬛🟨🟨⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html Minute Cryptic - 13 August, 2025 (I took longer with the Wordle but it does demonstrate what is nice about the kind of puzzles. I have basically got used to sleeping at 25C plus because there has been a lot hot weather recently. I am maybe a little grumpy. There is a "nationally significant" shortfall of water*. I am not impressed by the government's announcement page saying "Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems" because data storage is, compared to computation, very cheap in environmental terms and iin terms of cost of hardware/maintenance. What isn't so environmentally cheap is the rise of AI based on varieties of LLMs which categorically do require vast amounts of water to cool and which the UK government is encouraging because like the underpants gnomes the compute gnomes say "Phase 1. Gather compute. Phase 2. ??? Phase 3. Profit" and pretty much all future growth predictions are predicated on the basis of internet or motorway levels of productivity gains in economically important areas. I am not wholly an AI sceptic but take the worst case, for programmers, something like 6% of the UK workforce are programmers and they're all replaced, or significantly aided, by LLM based AI, does that represent significant overall gains in productivity or GDP, can it be replicated in all sectors? What is the environmental cost of using LLMs in the present way which is, essentially, intelligent regurgitation machines? I think potentially the gains are disproportionate to the outlay and potentially the enshittification will be staggering. I will be ecstatic if I am wrong and I hope I am wrong.) "Even Tom Cruise chases female attention" (5) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 I scored: 2 under par https://www.minutecryptic.com/ * https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=IXEfpdLzLfc