Listen.

This blog doesn’t always have to share deep, thoughtful posts.

Sometimes, it pays to take a minute¹ and appreciate that we live on the timeline where this moment was captured, uploaded to the internet, and then viewed 54,000,000 times. Humanity isn’t always bleak.

Also, I wish more people were this honest about what they were delivering. Because this video is 100% what you see on the tin.

This makes me miss playing in an orchestra, and it also makes me miss playing Pokémon as a kid.

Really not a whole lot to add here, other than once again, I am so pumped to get my own 3d printer and make ridiculous art like this.

It’s easy to let ourselves get overwhelmed by the demands of our everyday lives or sometimes to become a bit obsessed with big, existential questions. But what both extremes can do is rob us of the opportunity to be present. Meaningfully present.

It’s so remarkable, and so improbable, that we’re all here together. We should probably focus on enjoying that.

Got a lot of good quotes from this one, including Kmele Foster (who hosted it) and artists Godfrey Reggio, Steve Albini, and Fred Armisen.

Really great recommendation by my wife via Hank Green.

Everything in here, by the way, is completely true. Most of the technology you use every day is intentionally designed to keep you using it as long as possible.

I like the idea of going a full day without a phone to distract me. I really gotta finish getting my iPod working¹ and keeping up my book habit.

If I walked into the Dakota Jazz Club and heard this, I’m not sure how I’d be able to go about living the next day.

I’m sure most people are aware of how expensive it is to go out and see shows, but I’m not sure if most people are aware of why.

This video does a great job of explaining how the Ticketmaster + Livenation monopoly works.

We’re quickly approaching election season here in the US. Growing up, the importance of an informed electorate was driven into my brain.

This is the kind of stuff more voters need to be aware of. How do monopolies form? What market conditions lead to consolidation of power, and how do we hold those in power accountable?

Disposable vape pens are incredibly unsustainable. I’m glad people are finding clever ways like this to recycle them.

I finished this video and felt the same way I felt reading Hope and Help for your Nerves: seen.

When I talk to myself, there are times that I say unpleasant things to myself. I’ve spent the better part of 20 years trying to completely silence those thoughts.

When I started listening to them and welcoming them, my depression and anxiety improved almost immediately.

If you feel like you say mean crap to yourself and are looking for a way to stop, start with the advice that Karen Faith gives in this TEDx talk. It’s pretty much spot on, with what I’ve experienced.

One of the best parts of YouTube Premium is being able to run audio in the background while your screen is turned off.

I utilized this feature heavily this past weekend as I drove back from a long weekend of camping. I got sick shortly before we left, so I drove separately and met my family the next day.

On the drive back, I threw on this video and couldn’t wait to tell my wife about it when we met up down the road at a McDonalds.

If you are completely uninterested in large language models, artificial intelligence, generative AI, or complex statistical modeling, then this video is perfect to throw on if you’re struggling with insomnia.

If you have even a passing interest in LLMs, though, you have to check this presentation out by Andrej Karpathy, a co-founder of OpenAI.

Using quite approchable language, he explains how you build and tune an LLM, why it’s so expensive, how they can improve, and where these tools are vulnerable to attacks such as jailbreaking and prompt injection.

I’ve played with LLMs for a few years now and this video greatly improved the mental model I’ve developed around how these tools work.