On deciphering ancient Minoan scripts
LiDaR is the gift that keeps giving, in the dense forests of South America: www.vice.com/en/articl…
It’s good to make things _for fun_https://austinhenley.com/blog/programmingasplay.html
A not-so-long-ago article on SBF by Sequoia: web.archive.org/web/20221…
“After my interview with SBF, I was convinced: I was talking to a future trillionaire. Whatever mojo he worked on the partners at Sequoia—who fell for him after one Zoom—had worked on me, too…. I don’t know how I know, I just do. SBF is a winner.”
“He’s an ethical maximalist in an industry that’s overwhelmingly populated with ethical minimalists. … I know who I’d rather trust my money with: SBF, hands-down. And if he does end up saving the world as a side effect of being my banker, all the better.”
Pretty … unbelievable in hindsight.
Looking at Gemini and other “web bloat” fixes: youtu.be/I2Q35uFCq…
Vaguely disturbing: www.palladiummag.com/2022/11/0…
A reasonable overview of Urbit
It’s one thing to find evidence of an impact on Mars. It’s another thing to find water and ice on Mars.
It’s a whole other thing to find evidence of a mega-tsunami on Mars.
A psychedelic take on generative AIs: return.life/2022/06/2…
A review of “non-C-based” operating systems: https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/29/non_c_operating_systems/
Obligatory Octopus post – this time, an explanation for their brain complexity that suggests a possible common factor for all complex brains: an expansion in the variety of microRNA
Interesting talk by Peter Thule: youtu.be/ibR_ULHYi…
An interesting science v religion take: www.theguardian.com/science/2…
A short, tragi-comic account of GNU/FSF: www.spesh.com/danny/wri…
On the difficult market for developer tools: www.kite.com/blog/prod…
Level-headed assesment of blockchain: www.tbray.org/ongoing/W…
Remembering Erik Naggum http://jackkelly.name/blog/archives/2019/06/17/erik_naggum_10_years_on/index.html
The right “introduction curve” for Kubernetes: matt-rickard.com/dont-use-…
This reads like a movie of sorts. Unbelievable.
Leading up to arxiv.org/abs/2211….
Inspiring AF !!
Edit: the cost of doing all this:
Zhang’s preference for undertaking only ambitious problems is rare. The pursuit of tenure requires an academic to publish frequently, which often means refining one’s work within a field, a task that Zhang has no inclination for. He does not appear to be competitive with other mathematicians, or resentful about having been simply a teacher for years while everyone else was a professor. No one who knows him thinks that he is suited to a tenure-track position. “I think what he did was brilliant,” Deane Yang told me. “If you become a good calculus teacher, a school can become very dependent on you. You’re cheap and reliable, and there’s no reason to fire you. After you’ve done that a couple of years, you can do it on autopilot; you have a lot of free time to think, so long as you’re willing to live modestly. There are people who try to work nontenure jobs, of course, but usually they’re nuts and have very dysfunctional personalities and lives, and are unpleasant to deal with, because they feel disrespected. Clearly, Zhang never felt that.”