John D. Cook’s three advantages of non-AI models: It’s hard to imagine doing anything like Midjourney’s image generation without neural networks. The same is true of ChatGPT’s text generation. But a lot of business tasks do not require AI, and in fact would be better off not using AI.

Japan’s prime minister wants to kill hay fever: As pollen levels in Tokyo surged to their highest in a decade, Kishida told a parliamentary committee this week that hay fever had become a “social problem,” adding that he would work with ministers to devise a response.

Charles Leifer on asyncio: I think it’s a terrible design. The main problem, in my point-of-view, is that in order to utilize asyncio’s power, every layer of your stack must be implemented with asyncio in mind.

Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer by 2030s, say scientists: You might be asking the question: so what? […] But Arctic sea ice is an important component of the climate system. As it dramatically reduces the amount of sunlight absorbed by the ocean, removing this ice is predicted to further accelerate warming, through a process known as a positive feedback. This, in turn, will make the Greenland ice sheet melt faster, which is already a major contributor to sea level rise.