The case for insane asylums. This is probably controversial and borderline political, but I will share anyway. “a recounting of recent attacks by the insane, a history of america’s attempts to deal with severe mental illness, and an argument for […]
Microwave weapon downs 49 drones with a single blast. “Named after the Spartan king who held off a Persian invasion with a vastly inferior force at the Battle of Thermopylae, Leonidas is one of a family of weapons based on […]
Steel wheels instead of rubber tires. “The trouble with rubber tires, especially on heavy vehicles that operate in harsh conditions, is that they wear out quickly. In the case of working mining vehicles, that means replacing tires every 6-9 months, […]
The last days of social media. Here’s a missive about the end of the era of social media, the start of the AI-generated content swamp era that we’re in now, and a hope for a future where someone has created […]
How organizations are like slime molds. “There’s a hidden force that makes life in successful organizations increasingly miserable. It’s invisible, so we either don’t see it… or we at least pretend not to. But the force is inescapable and affects […]
How social media shortens your life. “The most common noun in the English language is “time”. We talk obsessively about time because it’s the most important thing in the universe. Without it, nothing can happen. And yet most of us […]
Why Google will win the AI race. “The AI race feels like a sprint right now, with OpenAI grabbing headlines and Meta open-sourcing everything they can. But if you’re placing bets on who wins the marathon, don’t overlook the company […]
Andrej Karpathy’s take on the Richard Sutton interview (above). “So that brings us to where we are. Stated plainly, today’s frontier LLM research is not about building animals. It is about summoning ghosts. You can think of ghosts as a […]
A bitter lesson for the bitter lesson fanboys. This is a really great interview by Dwarkesh Patel, who I think is really on a roll the past ~year. “Richard Sutton is the father of reinforcement learning, winner of the 2024 […]
The lobbying story behind the botched county systems upgrade (above). Here’s the punchline: “This, sadly, is the ‘Chicago Way’ — on steroids.” … “Tyler Technologies’ major county contracts – peppered with delays and cost overruns – were shepherded by well-connected […]