Featured Links - February 24, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Model train layout at Ganaraska Railway Modellers show in Port Hope

Cuts to U.S. weather and climate research could put public safety at risk. "Firings and budget cuts could slow emergency disaster response and weaken resilience efforts." This will also affect weather forecasting and climate modelling in Canada.

In 1177 BCE, Civilizations Fell Apart In A Mysterious Simultaneous Collapse. "What caused the late Bronze Age collapse?"

The Smarter AI Gets, the More It Start Cheating When It's Losing. "A recent study by Palisade Research, a research group studying AI safety and ethics, has revealed an unsettling trend: newer AI models can find and exploit weaknesses in cybersecurity on their own, bypassing safeguards and using shortcuts to complete tasks even when they're not technically allowed to."

The Grateful Dead: What a Long, Lucrative Trip It’s Been. "Now with the publication of The Economic History of the Grateful Dead: A Look Inside the Financial Records of America’s Biggest 20th Century Touring Act, we can see the numbers behind the music, at least of the Grateful Dead, the great American proto-jam band that has engendered a vast, multigenerational, cultlike following." They're hitting the top of the album charts. 

New Coronavirus Discovered in Chinese Bats Sparks Alarm. "A new bat coronavirus that has the capacity to spread to humans, similar to the one that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, has been discovered."

The Nerd Reich. "Science fiction has long been the literature of nerds. The dudes in lab coats, the chess prodigies, the guys tinkering with computers. At a time when socially awkward science-obsessives were scorned by society, science fiction was sometimes a refuge … and became a haven for nerd-empowerment fables."

The hardest working font in Manhattan. "Last year in New York, I walked over 100 miles and took thousands of photos of one and one font only. The font’s name is Gorton." And it has a fascinating and unusual history.