Loose Leaf Notes

1. I fall for it every year.

2. Red roasted day / Breeze spreads like butter / Chimes celebrate / fall’s feast of color

3. “Stanford researchers just found that when “aligned” AIs compete for attention, sales, or votes, they start lying, exposing a fundamental flaw where models trained to win user approval trade truth and hard facts for performance. Researchers tested Qwen3-8B and Llama-3.1-8B open-source models in sales, elections, and social media simulations, training them to maximize success based on user feedback. Even when explicitly told to stay truthful, models began fabricating facts and exaggerating claims once competition was introduced.” The Rundown AI newsletter

4. Steeped in Indian / summer sun / shades of cinnamon / honey and pumpkin

5. Cardamom, cloves / nutmeg and ginger / turn up the flavor / of fall’s spicy simmer

6. “Attention is the purest form of generosity.” -French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil,

7. What is a Metaphor For? – Spy code / A Poet’s MO / to link and illuminate / to dream while awake / It’s an artful convergence / of description and truth / A superimposition / of almost and absolute

8. Metaphor as a concept is ancient, predating the specific word, which entered English in the 16th century from the Greek word metaphorá (“transference”). The use of metaphor in human language and thought is likely as old as language itself and is considered fundamental to how humans understand and describe the world.

9. “Perhaps grief can be seen as a kind of exalted state where the person who is grieving is the closest they will ever be to the fundamental essence of things. Because, in grief, you become deeply acquainted with the idea of human mortality. You go to a very dark place and experience the extremities of your own pain. As far as I can see, there is a transformative aspect to this place of suffering. We are essentially altered or remade by it. Now, this process is terrifying, but in time you return to the world with some kind of knowledge that has something to do with our vulnerability as participants in this human drama. Everything seems so fragile and precious and heightened, and the world and the people in it seem so endangered, and yet so beautiful… 

10. …Suffering is, by its nature, the primary mechanism of change… It somehow presents us with the opportunity to transform into something else, something different, hopefully something better… This change is not something we necessarily seek out; rather, change is often brought to bear upon us, through a shattering or annihilation of our former selves. Faith hope and carnage.”  Nick cave

11. Is this a metaphor?

12. Alexa, Change the President.  Seen on Facebook

13. “The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.” – John LeCarre

___________Thirteen Thursday