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James King

@jamesking.io
79 followers 133 following 99 posts

Digital product designer from London. Founder at science-practice.com and co-founder at fora.health. Contributor to the Ergodicity Economics research community. jamesking.io

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James King @jamesking.io · 4h
Great idea for making "glanceable" podcasts. Perfect medium for listening to recorded lectures with slides. alexwlchan.net/2026/glancec...
alexwlchan.net
Abusing ID3 chapters to turn videos into glanceable podcasts
Inserting a chapter with artwork every few seconds turns an MP3 file into an approximation of a video file. I can listen to videos as audio-first, and glance at my lock screen if I need some visual co...
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James King @jamesking.io · 8h
Great interview with Tristan Buckmaster about getting scooped by Open AI. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzbt...
youtube.com
The Buckmaster Interview (Navier-Stokes) - Numberphile
YouTube video by Numberphile
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Reposted by James King
Benjamin @benjaminschneider.ch · 24/09/2026
don't ask claude to set an alarm for you
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Oliver Morton, Eater of Sun @eaterofsun.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/eate...
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James King @jamesking.io · 18/09/2026
Just updated this to work with the newly launched @observablehq.com.
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James King @jamesking.io · 15/09/2026
New Audiolog episode: Science practices Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-09-15
audiolog.jamesking.io
Science practices
Clips from Bruno Latour, Michael Lewis, Brian Wynne and Robert Miles.
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James King @jamesking.io · 12/09/2026
Stop motion animation?! www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtr5...
youtube.com
Wildwood – Official Trailer
YouTube video by LAIKA Studios
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Tom MacWright @macwright.com · 07/09/2026
observable's community is just stacked with talent
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James King @jamesking.io · 08/09/2026
New Audiolog episode: Andrew Pickering's philosophy of science Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-09-08
audiolog.jamesking.io
Andrew Pickering's philosophy of science
David Cayley interviews the philosopher of science, Andrew Pickering.
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James King @jamesking.io · 08/09/2026
This week's London Review of TikToks is particularly good. www.undermanager.com/the-london-r...
undermanager.com
The London Review of TikToks - special complexity edition
I was recently very annoyed by an episode of Past, Present, Future about how short-form video is a Bad Idea. It was lazy and silly and I vowed to make a short form video rebutting it all. (I haven't ...
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Observable @observablehq.com · 01/09/2026
For more than a year, we’ve been quietly building an all-new Observable. Today, that new Observable is live on observablehq.com. Read Mike @ocks.org’s announcement: observablehq.com/@observableh...
A screenshot of the new Observable interface, showing a notebook visualizing “Bollinger bands”. Several interface elements are labeled. Along the top: workspace menu, new notebook button, user menu. Along the right side: file attachments, dependencies, comments, settings, enable tinkering, show AI. In the interior: cell inserter, cell menu, cell toolbar.
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James King @jamesking.io · 19/08/2026
New post: Where to put the emphasis jamesking.io/2026/08/18/emphasis
jamesking.io
Where to put the emphasis
Some links on the importance of emphasis.
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James King @jamesking.io · 18/08/2026
New Audiolog episode: The glitch in The Matrix Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-08-17
audiolog.jamesking.io
The glitch in The Matrix
Clips from Jeremy Grantham, Robert Miles and Patrick Boyle.
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Ole Peters @opeters.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Nick Hanauer on how the ergodicity problem in economics informs his thinking about inequality. youtube.com/shorts/cOhbe...
youtube.com
Monopoly Economy: Why Markets Aren't Ergodic #shorts
YouTube video by Blackbook Protocol
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Observable @observablehq.com · 04/08/2026
We’ve been rebuilding the editor atop the foundation of Notebook Kit and portable files in an open format. You can’t necessarily tell yet, since there’s no button… but thanks to James for seeing it! See also @nxrix.bsky.social’s remarkable depicted notebook: new.observablehq.com/@nxrix/binar...
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James King @jamesking.io · 03/08/2026
New post: Simulating geometric Brownian motion jamesking.io/2026/08/03/geometric-b…
jamesking.io
Simulating geometric Brownian motion
Geometric Brownian motion is a frequently used modelling tool in finance and economics (especially [Ergodicity Economics](https://ergodicityeconomics.com/)), but it can be tricky to understand and implement.
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James King @jamesking.io · 03/08/2026
I am sure that @observablehq.com will add this feature soon, but until then… I made a tool that exports Observable Notebooks 2.0 documents from the new Observable site. Useful for editing locally in Observable Desktop. tools.jamesking.io/observable-n...
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Ole Peters @opeters.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I just checked, and you can get the book for EUR 5.17 at the moment: www.kennys.ie/shop/fortune...
kennys.ie
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com. Inspired by recent news about the SpudCell. NS subscribers can read about it here: www.newscientist.com/article/2532...
Title: The artificial cell's diary 

Panel 1: An oval green cell with a face opens its eyes. 
Caption: Woke up to the scientists discussing whether I was alive or just exhibiting some of the symptoms.

Panel 2: The cell looks thoughtful
Caption: A bit heavy for first thing in the morning.

Panel 3: The cell eats some little dots in the liquid around it.
Caption: Had a swim, then ate some of the molecule soup that I live in. My day is pretty much all soup-based.

Panels 4: The cell looks uncomfortable
Caption: Then I began to feel rather odd.

Panel 5 and 6: the cell hseems to be splitting in two
Caption: But, I saved the big news for last: 

Panel 7: The cell smiles. A new, smaller cell smiles back.
Caption: I made a new friend!
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James King @jamesking.io · 29/07/2026
Just finished reading the 20th anniversary edition of Fortune’s Formula by William Poundstone. It is such a good book. The new edition has an extra part, titled Ergodicity, which covers the work of Ole Peters and others.
The cover of William Poundstone’s book, Fortune’s Formula, 20th Anniversary edition.
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Ole Peters @opeters.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
If you’re interested in — I was going to say ergodicity, then I thought ‘decisions theory’, and now I’m settling on — life?, have a look at the 20th anniversary edition of William Poundstone’s classic Fortune’s Formula. It has a brand new part about the rise of ergodicity economics.
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Ole Peters @opeters.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Interesting exercise: use ergodicity economics to determine the conditions under which the answers are rational.
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James King @jamesking.io · 20/07/2026
New Audiolog episode: St. Petersburg Paradoxing Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-07-20
audiolog.jamesking.io
St. Petersburg Paradoxing
Clips from Jeremy Grantham, Alexander Altmann, Gary Stevenson, Sam Bankman-Fried and Sam Neil.
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James King @jamesking.io · 15/07/2026
New Audiolog episode: Compressed representations Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-07-15
audiolog.jamesking.io
Compressed representations
Clips from Grant Sanderson, Money Stuff and The Rest is Entertainment.
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Observable @observablehq.com · 13/07/2026
Here @fil.rezo.net reproduces @climatecasino.net’s chart, using warped gridlines to represent both the absolute temperature and the deviation from the historical mean for each day of the year. new.observablehq.com/@fil/godzill...
A line chart with an x-axis showing days of the year, from start of January to end of December; a left y-axis showing temperature, from 22 to 31 ºC; and a right axis showing deviation, from -3σ to 4σ. An orange line shows the mean, starting the year around 26.3 ºC and peaking in May around 27.8 ºC. Faint blue lines show a huge amount of historical data. A bold red line representing 2026 begins the year below the mean, just below 26 ºC, and continues to present day far above the mean, 29.4 ºC. Gray gridlines get “pinched” in the middle, representing narrower summer deviations, highlighting that the current temperature is almost 3.5σ above the mean.
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James King @jamesking.io · 02/07/2026
Enjoyed Grant Sanderson's Config talk on "Designing Math". Its an overview of his approach to exposition and teaching. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLSL...
youtube.com
Designing Math ft. Grant Sanderson (3Blue1Brown) I Config 2026
YouTube video by Figma
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James King @jamesking.io · 02/07/2026
This is a speculative video I made in 2010 about the difference between living and non-living things. Inspired by today's news of the SpudCell from Adamala et al., I've upscaled the video to 4K and I'm reposting it to YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRoI...
youtube.com
Cellularity
YouTube video by James King
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James King @jamesking.io · 02/07/2026
This is a speculative video I made in 2010 about the difference between living and non-living things. Inspired by today's news of the SpudCell from Adamala et al., I've upscaled the video to 4K and I'm reposting it to YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRoI...
youtube.com
Cellularity
YouTube video by James King
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Oliver Morton, Eater of Sun @eaterofsun.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
The @economist.com version of today's #SpudCell story (gift link) www.economist.com/science-and-...
economist.com
Scientists have built a cell from the ground up
What do you call an organism with no evolutionary ancestors? SpudCell, apparently
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James King @jamesking.io · 01/07/2026
@eikofried.bsky.social. Great website! I love this detail in particular. No idea how you did it, though!
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James King @jamesking.io · 30/06/2026
No, the nav is not a png. Yes, the text is selectable. Yes, including the "o"s. eiko-fried.com
A screenshot of Eiko Fried's website, cropped in close to show the navigation. Each "o" in the text of this navigation (Eik"o", Ab"o"ut, Bl"o"g etc…) has been replaced with a circular dot, representing a node in a simplified network. These are connected with other nodes outside of the text with lines that represent edges in the network.
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James King @jamesking.io · 29/06/2026
Finding the new @observablehq.com unexpectedly useful for checking my maths notation and understanding. new.observablehq.com
A screenshot of an Observablehq.com notebook with AI assistant providing feedback on mathematical notes written in Tex and Markdown.
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James King @jamesking.io · 29/06/2026
New Audiolog episode: Difficult, Important, Succeeding Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-06-29
audiolog.jamesking.io
Difficult, Important, Succeeding
Clips from Ada Palmer, Charlie Brooker and Russell Davies
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James King @jamesking.io · 29/06/2026
This is great! Very well presented and learned a lot.
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James King @jamesking.io · 21/06/2026
New post: Update on publishing an Audiolog jamesking.io/2026/06/21/audiolog-up…
jamesking.io
Update on publishing an Audiolog
After 30 episodes, adding some polish to my audio link blog.
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James King @jamesking.io · 15/06/2026
Cc @opeters.bsky.social “the wicked regard time as discontinuous”
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James King @jamesking.io · 15/06/2026
New Audiolog episode: Would a young Jack Bogle have waited for a second marshmallow? Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-06-15
audiolog.jamesking.io
Would a young Jack Bogle have waited for a second marshmallow?
Clips from the MMT podcast featuring Cory Doctorow and Patricia Pino and my highlights from the excellent recent episode of Acquired on Vanguard.
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James King @jamesking.io · 12/06/2026
Enjoying these tinier desk concerts from @undermanager.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iax7...
youtube.com
Earlies 12/6/26
YouTube video by Russell Davies
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James King @jamesking.io · 11/06/2026
A listening recommendation for learning about science and technology studies: jamesking.io/2026/06/10/how-to-thin…
jamesking.io
How to think about science
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James King @jamesking.io · 08/06/2026
New Audiolog episode: How does the math math? Listen: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-06-08
audiolog.jamesking.io
How does the math math?
Clips from CNBC, Money Stuff and Russell Davies
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James King @jamesking.io · 03/06/2026
New post: Quoting Dan Davies jamesking.io/2026/06/03/quoting-dan…
jamesking.io
Quoting Dan Davies
Quoting Dan Davies Britain is the Saudi Arabia of “Other business and professional services”. We dominate the world when it comes to “doing miscellaneous stuff”. Nobody can touch us when it comes to “things that don’t fit in any other category”. – Dan Davies
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James King @jamesking.io · 01/06/2026
New episode: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-06-01/
audiolog.jamesking.io
Parades of Horribles
Clips from Matt Dinniman, Benn Steil, Odd Lots, Steven Strogatz and the Newsagents.
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James King @jamesking.io · 27/04/2026
Episode 27 of my Audiolog: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-04-27/
audiolog.jamesking.io
Useful and competent technicians, like dentists - Audiolog
Clips from JerryrigEverything, Grant Sanderson, Dan Davies, Works in Progress and Why Nations Fail.
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James King @jamesking.io · 13/04/2026
New episode: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-04-13/
audiolog.jamesking.io
I hope you carry this wonder with you - Audiolog
Clips from Dithering, Odd Lots, Philip Pullman and the Artemis II mission.
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James King @jamesking.io · 03/04/2026
This set by Fred again and Thomas Bangalter is 2 hours of pure joy. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfF8...
youtube.com
Fred again.. & Thomas Bangalter (USB002, Alexandra Palace, London 27 February 2026)
YouTube video by Fred again . .
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James King @jamesking.io · 30/03/2026
New episode: audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-03-28/
audiolog.jamesking.io
Consider the Greenland Shark - Audiolog
Clips from Mark Kermode, Ada Palmer and Katherine Rundell.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
I don't think people fully appreciate how apocalyptic things are for US science. I haven't had any new funding since 2024, but I'm still ok since typical grants are for three years. This means next year I will be completely out of funding and will have to fire everyone in the lab. It's not great.
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James King @jamesking.io · 26/03/2026
The latest 3B1B video is really good. Its an analysis of an incredible MC Escher's artwork. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldxF...
youtube.com
How (and why) to take a logarithm of an image
YouTube video by 3Blue1Brown
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Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 12/02/2026
Bonus #DarwinDay content: Six of the best grumpy Darwin quotes.
I hate every wave of the ocean.
—Charles Darwin to W. D. Fox 15 Feb 1836

Oh my God how I do hate species & varieties.
—Charles Darwin to J. D. Hooker, 11 Mar 1858

I am very tired, very stomachy & hate nearly the whole world.
—Charles Darwin to Thomas Huxley, 10 Sep 1860

I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.
—Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell, 1 Oct 1861

I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.
—Charles Darwin to John Lubbock, 3 Sep 1862

I am languid & bedeviled & hate writing & hate everybody.
—Charles Darwin to J. D. Hooker 23 Jun 1863
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James King @jamesking.io · 13/02/2026
Audiolog episode 23: Making KPop Demon Hunters, negative income tax, car parks, and game theory on University Challenge. audiolog.jamesking.io/2026-02-13/
audiolog.jamesking.io
Carrying a baby through a war zone - Audiolog
Making KPop Demon Hunters, negative income tax, car parks, and game theory on University Challenge.
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