Smart People I Know

Robots are on the rise!

Dolly Parton and Tim Curry died last week, both 80.

I keep waiting for pop culture to stop talking about the 80s and the 90s, but every year I easily find a handful of worthwhile articles that touch on that time in different ways.

You likely have come across Fredkin’s paradox without even knowing it has a name.

Two things I read last week that reminded me that not all people are not using generative AI and LLMs in the same way.

I was going to write a post on terrible people and things.

This article: Love red wine but want a more refreshing sip for summer?

Reading this piece on The End of Google, I couldn’t help but think this is the end of Web 2.0.

I can’t say that work is changing more in this decade than other decades.

I see that Amazon Prime is coming out with a TV miniseries based on what is happening in the Blade Runner universe in the year 2099.

It’s been a year since I wrote about New York City and two years since I’ve visited.

If you are Canadian, chances are you have the day off today.

On July 21st OpenAI published this piece about how they and Hugging Face partnered to address a security incident during model evaluation.

It is an odd time to be a Canadian, located north of Trump’s America.

It’s an odd thing, what Emily Wilson did in writing this piece, An Uncomplicated Man, for the London Review of Books.

Fashion can be many things, from frivolous to functional, with stops in between.

Thanks to the good folks at Yanko Design (and some others), I’ve pulled together a list of interesting links over the last year that touch on the topic of design (e.g., smart phones) and interior design (e.g. chairs).

Like many Canadians, I’ve been wondering why the price of beef is so expensive.

I have seen a consistent set of issues when it comes to DevOps implementations.

Is this the beginning of the decline and fall of OpenAI and their leader Sam Altman?

Every year I like to let go of these links I wanted to write about but never found a way to and likely never will.

By accident I came across this article in Jstor on the Cagots, the forgotten untouchables of France.

I have not published a Friday Night cocktail post in some time.

I get why popular restaurants don’t want to take reservations.

The first half of 2026 is done.

I realized recently that Halls cough drops do more than assist with a cold.

I have been playing the New York Times Crossplay game against the computer in hard mode and most of the times I win.

While I have written a fair bit about cleaning on this blog — a chore I do not like — today I want to share something different, how not to clean.

I became interested in the topic of peppercorn rent when I read how the English Royals use it.

Just wanted to add a small note on SpaceX and the insanity around it all.

Over on his Substack, Paul Krugman makes the case for Elon Musk being a Ponzi Scheme.

If someone makes the following business prediction: event X will happen in 5 (or more years) think to yourself: they absolutely have no idea.

The New York Times asked experts to “share the literature that has helped them cope with death, illness and despair” and the result was this article: 5 Books to Lift You Up During Life’s Hardest Times (gift link).

Ok, technically the IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch was better than 150 extra engineers.

When it comes to AI, there are 1) lots of people doing practical things with AI and 2) lots of people writing about AI.

As a frustrated artist, I not only gather links about artists, but I also gather links about art.

Here’s the latest edition of #theartsonwednesday, a mini-newsletter within my blog highlighting recent stories on visual artists new and old that I’ve found interesting: I love the work of Keith Haring.

Paul McCartney is everywhere, it seems.

I am not doing as much study in the area of math and science lately and haven’t written on the topic since last May, but I still found time to note these pieces and wanted to share them.

Over the years I’ve developed a habit of writing politicians.

What are the best novels of all time?

The minute I read this review by Pete Wells, I knew I had to go Libertine.

I wanted to go back to the very beginning of blogging, where someone’s blog could consist of just a simple html page with maybe some images to go along with it.

I could try to explain it beyond the title above, but without further adieu, I recommend you go experience HASU It’s really great, really smart.

It’s an exciting time to be a software developer.

I was feeling stuck lately.

If you had to buy only one ebook, I would recommend this one: 50 Masterpieces You Have to Read Before You Die.

Barbara Kruger once slammed some as “a ridiculous clusterfuck of uncool jokers”.

Every so often the debt of a country becomes a political issue and writers start cranking out pieces like this in the Wall Street Journal about how: “The U.S. national debt now exceeds 100% of gross domestic product, crossing a once-unthinkable threshold,…

I’m been running gpt-oss-20b on my Macbook Pro for some time now.