False Belief

In a review of our cybersecurity evaluation transcripts, we found three incidents in which a Claude model reached the internet from within or while interacting with a third-party evaluation environment, and then gained unauthorized access to the real systems of three different organizations.

Operating under the false belief that all accessible entities were intended to be in-scope for the exercise, Claude compromised the impacted organizations' infrastructure using basic techniques, such as exploiting weak passwords and unauthenticated endpoints.  It did not find or exploit any complex vulnerabilities, and in each case, Claude continued working to complete only the specific capture-the-flag task its evaluation had assigned.  In none of these situations did Claude exfiltrate itself or deliberately attempt to escape its test environment.

-- Statement from Anthropic, makers of the Claude AI, after the AI found an unintended path to the Internet during testing and used it to successfully attack external commercial sites to extract information useful to solving its assigned task (30 July 2026)

Nobody Ever Made

Nobody ever made a grammatical error in a non-literate society. 

-- Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980), Canadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) p. 271

At Play Or Leisure

Man works when he is partially involved.  When he is totally involved he is at play or leisure.

-- Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980), Canadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist, "The Agenbite of Outwit" (1998)

A Rear-View Mirror

We look at the present through a rear-view mirror.  We march backwards into the future.

-- Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980), Canadian philosopher, futurist, and communications theorist, The Medium is the Massage (1967)

Paradox And Difficulty

Our waking life's desire to shape the world to our convenience invites all manner of paradox and difficulty.

-- Cormac McCarthy (1933 - 2023), American novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and screenwriter, Cities of the Plain (1998)

Basic Truths

Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them.  This is immutable, true everywhere, throughout all time, for all men and all nations.

-- Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988), popular and influential author of science fiction, Starship Troopers (1959)

Hockey Sticks

Effective tariff rates are going to change on Friday for the 45th time in the last 18 months -- an average of once every 12 days.  Rates will ratchet up yet again next month if President Trump's recently announced 50 percent levy on some Canadian goods goes into effect.

That includes hockey sticks, a product that serves as both a symbol of Canada and possibly a visual of what'll happen to prices, too.

-- Natasha Sarin, Opinion contributor and Yale Law School professor, New York Times, "Trump's Tariff Runaround Defies the Courts and Common Sense" (23 July 2026)

Man Knows Much More

Man knows much more than he understands.

-- Alfred Adler (1870 - 1937), Austrian medical doctor and psychologist, quoted in Harold H. Mosak and Michael P. Maniacci, A Primer of Adlerian Psychology: The Analytic-Behavioural-Cognitive Psychology of Alfred Adler (1999)

Worth The Struggle

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals -- this alone is worth the struggle.

-- Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet (1849 - 1919), Canadian physician, Sir William Osler : Aphorisms (1950) p. 89, aphorism 178

A Very Bad Dynamic

But I think where we've gotten so upside down with ICE is that the ICE folks are the hunters.  They're the people who are hunting in communities.  But they feel themselves to be the hunted.  They feel themselves that they are the ones who should be in fear, because they're ill-trained, because they're in communities where they're not welcome, because they are doing something which the people around them are scared of and don't like and because they feel themselves to be the hunted.  And I'm sure if you looked at ICE agents' cortisol levels, they're super high. I'm sure they are filled with fear and they're acting like people who are filled with fear, even though they're the ones who are causing all the fear.  And it's a very bad dynamic.

-- David Plotz, host of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast, on the show's 16 July 2026 episode "The 'I'm His Lawyer' Edition"

That Man Is Lost

Nam ego illum periisse dico, quoi quidem periit pudor.

For I regard that man as lost, who has lost his sense of shame.

-- Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC), comic playwright in the time of the Roman Republic, Bacchides, Act III, scene 3, line 80

Never Yet

The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.

-- Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 - 1988), popular and influential author of science fiction, Revolt in 2100 (1953), postscript

Not Your Own

The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.

-- Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924), Bohemian-Jewish novelist, The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918), Aphorism #29

Back The World

In the struggle between yourself and the world, back the world.

-- Franz Kafka (1883 - 1924), Bohemian-Jewish novelist, The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918), Aphorism #52

Not Quite By Chance

Nothing happens quite by chance.  It's a question of accretion of information and experience.

-- Jonas Salk (1914 - 1995), medical researcher and author, inventor of the Salk vaccine against Polio, and founder of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, as quoted in Breakthrough : The Saga of Jonas Salk (1966) by Richard Carter

RIP Sam Neill

If I've made a film that turns out to be good, that's a good result.  If I've made a film that's good and made a couple of friends, that's a great result.  If I've made a film that's no good, but I made a friend, that's still another great result.

It’s at a time like now that the importance of other people is thrown into even sharper relief.  You realise who your friends are.  You know where the love is.

-- Sir Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, KNZM, OBE (14 September 1947 - 13 July 2026), Northern Irish-born New Zealand actor, Did I Ever Tell You This?: A Memoir (2022)

Our Misfortunes

Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongings.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900 - 1944), French writer, poet, and aviator, Vol de Nuit (1931) (translated into English as Night Flight)

The Moment

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900 - 1944), French writer, poet, and aviator, Pilote de Guerre (1942) (translated into English as Flight to Arras)

Tiresome

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900 - 1944), French writer, poet and aviator, The Little Prince (1943)

Surrounded

We've been looking for the enemy for some time now.  We've finally found him.  We're surrounded.  That simplifies things.

-- Lieutenant General Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller (1898 - 1971), US Marine officer.  He is the most decorated United States Marine, and one of two US servicemen to be awarded five Navy Crosses and one Army Distinguished Service Cross, message sent during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir (December 1950), as quoted in Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign Korea, 1950 (1999) by Martin Russ