Monday, 9 November 2026

Brazil: Norris takes a wet pole; Piastri out in Q2 again, while Hamilton and Verstappen start at the back

Heavy rain red-flagged qualifying about a minute into Q1, with a stoppage of roughly 80 minutes. When it resumed, Norris took pole with 1:27.470, 0.204s ahead of Russell. After penalties the grid reads Norris, Antonelli, Lawson (equalling his best start), Hülkenberg, Hadjar, Bearman, Russell (−5), Alonso, Albon, Piastri. Leclerc starts 14th after his 10-place drop. Hamilton qualified 11th, but his new engine smoked in FP3, so Ferrari changed the whole power unit and he joins Verstappen (who qualified 16th) and Pérez at the back.

For the P2 fight (Verstappen 261, Hamilton 259, Russell 250, Leclerc 245) that put Russell ahead of all three rivals on the grid. Piastri was out in Q2 for the second race running. He made a mistake on intermediates on his final lap and was over a second off Norris in both Q1 and Q2. The race was still running as this went out, so the result goes on tomorrow’s page.

F1.com — qualifying · RaceFans — grid · PlanetF1 — Hamilton · PlanetF1 — Piastri

An AI system claims a proof of the 18-year-old Aaronson–Ambainis conjecture, checked in Lean

Physical Superintelligence (PSI) says its in-house research system, running instances of a non-public Anthropic model, proved the 2008 Aaronson–Ambainis conjecture, with the whole proof formalised in Lean. Roughly, the conjecture says a quantum algorithm can’t beat classical ones by an exponential margin on most inputs unless the problem has special structure, like the structure Shor’s algorithm exploits. The paper and Lean code are on GitHub.

The Stanford group of Guy Blanc, Jordan Docter, Carmen Strassle and Li-Yang Tan, who proved a special case earlier this year, call it “a huge result” and are writing a shorter version for experts. It isn’t peer-reviewed yet. Separately, the ethdiscussion.blog review of the ETH-refutation claims still hasn’t posted a verdict (nothing since 1 Nov).

PSI — announcement (6 Nov) · Paper + Lean code · ethdiscussion.blog

Hans Zimmer vs John Williams comes to the Sydney Opera House on 18 February

John Foreman’s 64-piece Australian Pops Orchestra is touring The Music of Hans Zimmer & John Williams in 2027, after this year’s Melbourne-only shows. Sydney gets two performances at the Opera House on Thursday 18 February (2pm and 7pm), and tickets are on sale now. There are also dates in Brisbane (QPAC, 8–9 Jan), Adelaide (13 Feb, on sale 12 Nov), Perth (5 Jun) and Melbourne (25 Sep).

Theatre Matters (5 Nov)

Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s score for the polar-bear documentary Nuisance Bear is out

The Emmy-winning White Lotus composer has released a 19-track album for Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman’s documentary. The film won the US Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance 2026. The centrepiece is the 7:44 “The Bear’s Journey”. Tapia de Veer’s scores lean on strange vocal and percussive textures, so this one should be worth an awards-season listen.

Film Music Reporter (7 Nov)

Total Chess Budapest starts Tuesday, and Carlsen is playing for the first “World Combined” title

24 players in four groups of six play blitz, rapid and a 45+30 “Fast Classic”. An opening blitz on 10 Nov sets the tiebreaks, groups run 11–15 Nov, semis 17–18 and the final 19–20 Nov. The winner becomes the first FIDE World Combined Champion, and ChessBase says the top two qualify for the Candidates. The field includes Carlsen, Caruana, Abdusattorov, Firouzja, Giri, Praggnanandhaa, Arjun, Niemann, Nepomniachtchi and Keymer. Gukesh, Sindarov and Nakamura aren’t playing. Carlsen has been preparing in Spain with Abdusattorov, Peter Heine Nielsen and David Howell.

ChessBase (6 Nov) · World Chess preview

“The young king faces his toughest challenge”: previewing Gukesh vs Sindarov

GM Yannick Pelletier’s preview, carried by both FIDE and ChessBase, describes Gukesh’s slide since mid-2025: he is down to 26th in the world (2710). Sindarov won the 2025 World Cup, dominated the 2026 Candidates and now outrates the champion by 72 points. The 14-game match is in Geneva from late November, with Lékó and Svidler commentating.

FIDE (7 Nov) · ChessBase

Raph Levien’s JIT compiles each text string into ARM code for the RP2350

For vic-2350, a reimagined 80s home computer on the Raspberry Pi RP2350, Levien JIT-compiles each text string into straight-line ARM code. That code packs the glyphs into a 1-bit scanline, which is then expanded to RGB565 at 1.75 cycles per pixel. The demo takes about 21k cycles to compile (under 100µs, between video lines) and 42k cycles to run, roughly 2.6% of one core. It works out to 23 cycles per glyph, and the packed font shrank from 1,140 to 960 bytes. It reads like a modern take on racing the beam.

Linebender blog (7 Nov)

A $10 4G dongle as a homelab: ten services in 450 MB

Laurens Bosscher reflashed an “OpenStick” USB 4G modem (quad Cortex-A53 at 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB eMMC, Wi-Fi, LTE and GPS) with Debian and Podman. It now runs about ten services, and he lists each one’s memory use: AdGuard Home (~40 MB, blocking ~60% of DNS queries), Gatus (10 MB), Beszel, Cloudflare Tunnel, and a small AI agent that monitors the box over Telegram. It was the top HN story of the weekend (700+ points).

bosscher.ch (7 Nov)

Every CPU die photo anyone has given away, on one page

sheets.works plots 356 freely licensed die photographs from 1972 to 2024, with a true-scale view of the 114 chips whose die area is known. Most of the photos come from Pauli Rautakorpi (162), Fritzchens Fritz (68) and John McMaster (36). Scrolling through 50 years of layouts shows regular arrays of cache and the ever-tighter patterning of later chips.

sheets.works

John Langford: “AI Frontiers is over”

The Microsoft Research AI Frontiers group (about 50 people, behind Autogen and the Fara computer-use agent) was moved into Microsoft AI in September. Langford calls it a non-consensual reorg in which leadership put scaling ahead of research. He and the group’s other founding leaders have left, and no internships are planned. It’s a candid insider account of where industrial AI research is heading.

hunch.net (6 Nov)

Writing as a thinking tool, and what LLMs do to it

Murat Demirbas quotes Manuel Blum: “Without writing, you are reduced to a finite automaton.” Writing a review once showed him he understood only about 60% of a paper he thought he knew, because the writing made the gaps visible. He argues that opening an LLM chat too early skips that step. He also says LLM polish breaks an old assumption: a clean six-page memo no longer shows that its author thought clearly.

Metadata (7 Nov)

Terry Pratchett’s study in 1:12 scale

A retired Danish miniaturist spent about six weeks building a corner of Pratchett’s study as a gift for her son. It has individually made Discworld books, a printed manuscript of the first 150 pages of The Colour of Magic, a working clock, and a 3D-printed, hand-painted keyboard and phone. The tiny monitors show Doom.

sussi.dk (7 Nov)

Cryptogramophone becomes Gramophonic, and Ben Goldberg’s clarinet records return

Jeff Gauthier has renamed his adventurous LA jazz label to get away from the crypto connotations. He has put ten catalogue albums on Bandcamp, including Jenny Scheinman with Bill Frisell, Trio M and Erik Friedlander. CDs by Nels Cline and by clarinettist Ben Goldberg, a master of the contra-alto and of free, folk-tinged clarinet writing, are coming back into print.

Avant Music News (7 Nov)

Second ESCAPADE probe fires over southern Australia tonight at 9:51pm

The first of NASA’s twin Mars probes did its Earth flyby and engine burn on 7 Nov. The second fires at 5:51am EST on Monday, which is 9:51pm Sydney time tonight. It passes 970–1,770 km up and burns for 9 minutes, going from about 10.1 to 10.8 km/s. NASA says the burns can be seen from southern Australia, but expect a faint moving dot, best through a telescope. Later this month: Northern Taurids around 12 Nov, Mars–Jupiter 1.2° apart before dawn on 15–16 Nov, Leonids 17–18 Nov.

NASA ESCAPADE blog · NASA star charts · November sky guide

Kangaroos and Jillaroos into the World Cup finals; Foo Fighters Tuesday; bus bans continue

The Kangaroos beat Samoa 44–12 at Allianz Stadium (41,259 there, Reece Walsh hat-trick). The Jillaroos were 8–8 at half-time with Fiji before Abbi Church’s four tries won it 30–14. Both play New Zealand in a double-header at Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, on Sunday 15 Nov.

Foo Fighters play Accor Stadium on Tuesday 10 Nov (band 8pm, ends ~11pm). Tickets include transport, express trains run from Central every ~10 min from 4pm, and there’s trackwork on T2/T5/T8 afterwards. The bus drivers’ indefinite work bans (Eastern Suburbs, Northern Beaches, lower North Shore, some CBD routes) are still on. This week at the ICC: Greg Davies Tue, Ashanti Fri, Jay Shetty Sat. Darling Harbour’s Christmas season starts Sun 15 Nov.

NRL — Kangaroos · NRL — Jillaroos · Transport NSW — Foo Fighters · Bus bans · Darling Harbour

Amateur musicals this weekend: Gypsy, Xanadu JR and the last of Anything Goes

Bankstown Theatre Company’s Gypsy plays the Bryan Brown Theatre on Sat 14 Nov (1:30 and 7:30pm) and Sun 15 Nov (1:30pm). Xanadu JR, roller skates and all, opens at Pottery Lane Performance Space in Lane Cove on Fri 13 Nov and runs to 29 Nov. Hills Musical Theatre Company’s Anything Goes has its final shows on Fri 13 Nov (8pm) and Sat 14 Nov (2pm and 8pm).

Bryan Brown Theatre — Gypsy · Xanadu JR tickets · Hills MTC — Anything Goes