All posts tagged: Notions

Notions of ‘Christendom’ often miss the mark – medieval Europe’s ideas about faith and power were not so simple

Notions of ‘Christendom’ often miss the mark – medieval Europe’s ideas about faith and power were not so simple

Published by Sam Flores

(The Conversation) — During the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 5, 2026, Paula White-Cain, senior adviser to the White House Office of Faith, introduced President Donald Trump as “the greatest champion of faith that we have ever had in the executive branch.” Taking the podium after her, Trump declared, “I’ve done more for religion than any other president.” Should an earthly leader be promoting a heavenly cause? Some of the Americans who say “yes” – by no means all – are likely sympathetic to the ideas and values of Christian nationalism. A blanket term, Christian nationalism ranges in meaning. Some citizens might see themselves as Christian nationalists simply because they are Christian and patriotic. Others, however, assert that the United States is rightfully a Christian nation that ought to be governed by Christian leaders, ethics and laws. As a historian, I’m aware that Christian nationalism relies upon a selective and often distorted view of American history. As a historian of the European Middle Ages, in particular, I’m interested in another myth of a shared Christian …

Why Notion’s biggest AI breakthrough came from simplifying everything

Why Notion’s biggest AI breakthrough came from simplifying everything

Published by skeptic

When initially experimenting with LLMs and agentic AI, software engineers at Notion AI applied advanced code generation, complex schemas, and heavy instructioning.  Quickly, though, trial and error taught the team that it could get rid of all of that complicated data modeling. Notion’s AI engineering lead Ryan Nystrom and his team pivoted to simple prompts, human-readable representations, minimal abstraction, and familiar markdown formats. The result was dramatically improved model performance.  Applying this re-wired approach, the AI-native company released V3 of its productivity software in September. Its notable feature: Cutomizable AI agents — which have quickly become Notion’s most successful AI tool to date. Based on usage patterns compared to previous versions, Nystrom calls it a “step function improvement.” “It’s that feeling of when the product is being pulled out of you rather than you trying to push,” Nystrom explains in a VB Beyond the Pilot podcast. “We knew from that moment, really early on, that we had something. Now it’s, ‘How could I ever use Notion without this feature?’” ‘Rewiring’ for the AI agent era …