The Stargazer

Sometimes, I am reminded not to be quick to judge because I usually don’t know the whole story, and life is hard, and the world is complicated.

My partner and I have had a long-standing disagreement when it comes to wealth inequality: she has always argued that the ceiling should be lower, i.e. people should not be allowed to be that rich and use that to raise the bottom; whereas I have always ar…

William James Sidis was a child prodigy.

A really interesting video about why we don’t eat predator meat – which indeed is puzzling, if you have never thought about it.

As AI gets better, and more and more the choice of whether you use it or not professionally becomes a “use it or be out-competed by those who do” type of not-really-a-choice, many are rightfully concerned that we’re outsourcing too much of our thinking to…

I have came across this short article by a neuroscientist: The Neurology of Self-Awareness: What is the self?

38% of Stanford undergrads receive disability accommodations—but it’s become a college-wide phenomenon as Gen Z try to succeed in the current climate (which must be aiming for the Longest Title award) notes the large percentage of students that receive ac…

If you’re anything like me, you have read a billion and one blogposts, articles, essays, and discussions on AI and LLMs.

Raising money fucked me up (discussed on Hacker News) is a refreshing counter-perspective to posts and reflections by successful startup and business founders.

Random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions (discussed on Hacker News) proposes that, counter-intuitively, we should be using random selection for positions of power and authority.

From anybody else, I would call Introducing AI 2027 alarmist, but Scott Alexander is one of the most level-headed people whose writings I regularly read.

In the midst of all the news about the Trump tariffs (which apparently stem from Trump’s not understanding what trade deficit means and why it may exist), rest your weary head here traveler and read about something fun instead: Swami Nithyananda … claimed…

High-tech swimming: The Swimsuit So Good They Banned It is a fun, short video about the world of high-tech swimwear that was used to beat a great many world records.

Stimulation Clicker is both a fun little browser-based game and social commentary, almost an art-piece.

About 40 hours is a somewhat mistitled essay, thoughts relating to working hours, work impact, and work efficiency.

Leaving and Waving is a beautiful piece of art that has touched me, and judging from the Hacker news thread one that has similarly impacted many people living far away from their parents.

A beautiful example of how technology can massively improve a person’s life: MomBoard: E-ink display for a parent with amnesia (discussed on Hacker News): Today marks two years since I first set up an e-ink display in my mom’s apartment to help her live on

The idea of prisons, frankly, disturb me, but I’m not sure whether it disturbs me more or less than the idea of hardened criminals being free.

Bhutan, after prioritizing happiness, now faces an existential crisis (discussed on Hacker News) was a fascinating read.

Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity is a fascinating essay and historical overview of Ancient Rome that debunks a lot of my believes about that time.

I found Traceroute isn’t real, or: Whoops!

A comment in the Trump wins presidency for second time thread on Hacker News I feel like summarized the situation very well: The reason for this [the recent rise of the far-right and populism] isn’t a mystery: the world doesn’t work for the plurality of i…

Book Review: Deep Utopia talks about a book (you’ll never guess its title) that asks: What if there were literally no problems?

I’ve really enjoyed the video Is Our World Broken?

The Fastest Mutexes by Justine Tunney (discussed on Hacker News) is an excellent work digging into the performance of commonly used mutex implementations, and presenting a new fast mutex in Cosmopolitan Libc.

Doomsday theories appear to be a popular pastime of humanity, but they come in wildly varying types.

Since the excellent The Three-Body Problem book trilogy and the similarly great Netflix adaptation, I have been wondering why exactly is the name-giving physics/mathematics problem called the three-body problem considered unsolvable.