Here's a pretty photo I made using Python and some neat mathematics and statistics. So he was the original photo of my friend's dog for reference. So you absolutely could get the photo above using some filter in Photoshop or your favorite editing app. But where's the fun in that? I want to teach you mathematics....

Rating: 🟩 Type: Fiction The review they stick in the front describes it as "Part western, part Greek tragedy" and I think that is a really good description. The story is very Australian, but not in a cheap way, and all the characters are fascinating. I don't read a lot of fiction and even less "literaqture" but this...

Rating: 🟩 Type: Non-Fiction I never read John Green's YA fiction, since I was not a "YA" when I first came across it, BUT, I absolutely adored Crash Course History, and the way John thinks on Vlog Brothers. With this in mind, "Everything is Tuberculosis" is everything I hoped for. He places the diseases in the...

Rating: 🟧 Type: Non-Fiction Fair warning, this is straight up propaganda (it even had to pass MI5 clearance to publish) and is written like Tom Clancy. Nonetheless, it was really enjoyable to read. The narrative of it is mostly in the form of radio chatter which is a form I personally find gripping. Also kind of...

Just wanted to share a quick solution I realised about my relationship to "short form content". In general I do not consume (or at least try my best not to consume) short form / vertical videos. Too addictive, don't want to wastew the time on it. but.... There are a handful of creators who do thoughtful shortform...

This is a blogpost about my favourite aliens. Okay, in my opinion, there is nothing interesting about aliens who's entire conceit is humans with funny coloured skin and a cool hat *Credit: Doctor Who* I want to good stuff, with crazy physio-psychology and divergent evolutionary strategies. I want to look at the...

I just stumbled accross an interesting paper on organisations with an abstract I just had to share. (Sections removed for emphasis, clarity and comedy) This paper examines how employees become simultaneously empowered and alienated by detailed, holistic knowledge of the actual operations of their organization,... As...

The other day I read this great blog-post about why you shouldn't anthropomorphise LLMs. I agree with all the specifics of the post, but also slightly disagree with AddXorRol's epistemic framework. Then I read this response by seangodecke explaining why you should. I went into it assuming that Sean would bring up my...

Rating: 🟧 Type: Non-Fiction A bit of a slog to get through to be completely honest, but also incredibly important. The book tells the story of Australia through the lens of union action. Turns out almost all the institutions I like were thanks to unions. If you have ever said the words "Bob Hawke and Keating were...

Biology was never not cool to be honest, but I stumbled upon another mind melting phenomenon. The Venus' flower basket Credit: Wikimedia Is a deep sea sponge that grows between 500m - 1km underwater (although it can be found as shallow as 100m), and is MADE OF GLASS. Even cooler than the fact that this sponge...

Shoutout to Heals for sharing their own workflow in a Mastodon post for inspiring me. Problem Statement Here are two axioms, which were until recently, incompatible. I want all my notes to be digitized in plain text I enjoy writing in pen and paper Keeping everything in plain text preserves my writing well into the...

1 Blindsight, Transhumanism, and Surveillance Capitalism I can not stop thinking about Peter Watts novel Blindsight (2006). It keeps me up at night thinking about its implications and what it says about humanity. Let me tell you about it. The novel's main character Siri is a "synthesist". Siri has the remarkable...