Reread this iconic CS Lewis post called the Inner Ring. George, Henry on Georgism to Pope Leo XIII. Ultrasound technology.
Claude 4! Good blog post describing megakernel. LLVM PR with clever work done by Claude! He also has a cute lil jailbreak. Steve Klabnik (š¦) on AI discourse, really pleasant to see old software engineering idols weigh in on my lifeās work. Some thoughts on how AI will change things, need more of this content with higher specificity and increased number of rollouts to actually understand though. Dario on regulations and transparency. I had never heard of a Rick Rubin! I think he could be an important concept, as a producer who maybe doesnāt have the skills for making music yet still provides real value.
Sam Altmanās kitchen (we use the same olive oil). Scott Aaronson on being a rationalist, like me!
There was a sport for me in high school, I just didnāt know it. Bill Clinton and James Patternson are writing a political thriller?! And itās not their first!? And it has a funny āAbout the authorā where his presidency isnāt mentioned till near the end. The broad arrow. Looking for good gelato.
World Tour
Iāve been thinking a lot about the world lately, and all I havenāt seen. I think if the world is about to drastically change really fast (and really soon) then I would like to know and understand as much of it as I can.
In historical tradition, Iāll go East to West (ish).
Japan
What can I say about Japan that hasnāt already been said? Theyāre the only country that that would have an earnest life-sized cardboard cutout of the late pope at a Catholic museum (found in Nagasaki). People are always complaining about tourists, but Kyushu during Golden Week was just Japanese tourists, who are adorable if not too excited about what is an aggressively mediocre Chinatown.
Spoiler! Alert. If You Think There Is Any Chance You Will Be In Japan From Now Till October 13th, Stop Reading!
Absolutely wild to me that not more people know about the World Expo. Itās like the Worldās Fair but itās still happening right now! In a hilarious fall from grace, the spectacle that brought us the likes of the Eiffel Tower and air conditioning, is now full of ESG slop and AI art. There are a lot of reasons for this fall, which can all be summed up as āthe world got too big and things had to specialiseā.
I took the USA Pavillion tour in Chinese because the line was shorter, and the tour guide made a great deal of delineating the mainland from Taiwan. The exhibit advertised the Fulbright scholarship prominently (rip), and documented every single American space flight (including Blue Origin) except SpaceX. Staffed by State Department interns, it was a true Biden capsule. Taiwan did not get a traditional country pavillion, rather they had a spot outside the ring called Tech World, right next to the Gas Pavillion which kept talking about a mysterious āe-methaneā. Countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan brought incredible production value, and upon looking up their GDP I learned they must be dictatorships. All the architecture there is stunning. The Korea pavillion had a huge screen (very conservatively at least 15x30 feet) that played 2016 GANs on loop. There is a cute mascot. The China pavillion had a sanctioned GPU and a section on āfriendshipā with the Japanese. There was a drone show and water show. Hat tip to Indonesia for having an earnest pavillion, but the other ones were really funny. I wouldāve spent at least two full days there if I budgeted for it.
New Hebrides
In a surprising libertarian twist, a condominium colony in Oceania?! They had separate post offices and police forces for the French and British, with equal administrators on each side. Each administration had its own laws, currencies, immigration policies, and even had regulatory arbitrage. I asked people who would break a tie in case of a contention. Some answered the natives because they donāt understand hows colonialism works. My guess was the pope because I forgot about Martin Luther (sorry!). Idiots! Clearly, the King of Spain is the tie breaker.
China
Beijing Silvermine, an archive of negatives from 1985 - 2005. Some truly epic photos in here. Makes me nostalgic somehow, maybe the ancestral memory is in me somewhere. The Chinese Periodic Table.
Do not write madlibs of ancient philosophical and religious texts! I donāt want to claim anything on the grounds of disrespect or offense here (I donāt even like Taoism), just that itās ugly and crude. That website is the éå¾·ē» with word substitution for it to be about code in ways that donāt make sense. The referenced translator in that production, Stephen Mitchell, claims to have also translated the Bhagavad Gita, the Iliad, and Job which is a clear red flag even if you donāt notice that his translation is in large parts fabrication. Even fanfiction ā a far higher form of art ā of ancient texts has rarely been an aesthetically successful endeavour. The best is likely the Book of Mormon, which wins by a landslide unless you count the New Testament. If you want to think about Taoism, check out this site.
Korea
Definitely learn hangul which is the most incredible alphabet (there was a time where they almost incorporated traditional Chinese characters, thank goodness we are not in that timeline). They have some fairly unusual politics as well which you can read about on the Blue Roof website. When you visit, you can see a lot of downstream effects of the Chaebols, the War and their economic boom. Also scroll down on the Kimchi page, it goes crazy. The Chinese love to claim that anything that happened in Asia was them (except the things that they really donāt want to have been them).
On the margin, Korea is probably the top country Iād recommend visiting. Itās beautiful, cheap, and full of unique culture that is not going to last long as either the ASI or birth rates will catch up to them. They have Chinese maximalism (artificial waterfalls, spas with waterslides), lack of western software, insane drinking culture and delicious food. Thereās a lot of āinsert tokens for utilsā sort of energy. Their subway stations are stocked with modest numbers of gas masks and every city block has something about Dokdo and Jeju (two important islands for very different reasons, but in a way, the same reason).
USSR
The second-most exciting experience I had on a recent trip to Vegas was talking to a Yugoslavian Lyft driver who I stayed in the car chatting to after arriving at the destination. Thereās very little that is like the connection an emigrant has to their now non-existent country. Itās unlikely Iāll ever see the fall of a nation on the scale of the USSR.
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast, highly recommend listening to the anthem. Reminds me of the King of Spain thing where it sounds ridiculous but then you think a little and it starts to make a lot of sense. The Soviets referred to the Jews as ārootless cosmopolitansā in a historical slur, though Iām told ārootlessā is somewhat of a bad translation and itās more like āwithout peopleā.
Unfortunately thanks to their misfortune, the Soviets produced a lot of incredible art. Crime and Punishment is on my nightstand and Iām making good progress, and the Idiot remains in mind as I vividly recall a friend informing me that it is about me.
I watched Stalker (my first Tarkovsky film), it was good? I was certainly engaged, affected even. Itās a difficult watch, I donāt know if I have anything to say. Iāve been told Iām more of a Solaris girl. I watched the Hedgehog in the Fog at least six times this month. Miyazaki loved it, but it also so perfectly captures the Soviet mindset. Iām extremely excited to watch Tale of Tales (but saving it) and the Overcoat, which has been in production for uh, 40 years now. I also watched a bit of Cheburashka and itās pretty good good. I watched the entirety of Vinni Pukh of which there is like 30 minutes total and itās way better than āWinnie the Poohā though maybe people who grew up with American cartoons will disagree.
America, United States of
Man elevates to 4,900 meters in a lawnchair, āAh, the difficulty is, ah, this was an unauthorized balloon launch, and, uh, I know I'm in a federal airspace, and, uh, I'm sure my ground crew has alerted the proper authority. But, uh, just call them and tell them I'm okayā he says. Why donāt we use pleasure as an interrogation technique? The Mayflower is underrated as a boat. If there was one thing I could go back in time to see in America, it would be the Civil Rights movement. It was an incredible situation of humanity, politics, heroism and leadership. What better year than 2025 to get into the Civil Rights movement?
Iām always saying that musical theatre is The White American Art. I got the chance to see a local theatre put on Pacific Overtures, a Sondheim musical about the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. āPlease Hello!ā is likely Sondheimās lyrical masterpiece, and the show was artfully problematic in every single way all at once (though is straightforwardly pro-colonization).