• Infinity machine

    Infinity machine

    I was surprised at how interesting The Infinity Machine was, but maybe I shouldn’t be. It’s a biography of one person, namely one of the fathers of modern AI and the person that runs Google’s Gemini AI product now (Demis Hassabis, which is pronounced DEH-mees Has-SAH-bees), but it also covers many people who have been in the AI development orbit in-depth. It’s also a historical account of technology that’s so recent and in the moment it feels like reading a piece in the NYT.

    I’m certainly interested in AI. I can feel its impact on me, my work, and everyone around me. I also feel all the anxiety around it on a daily basis too. Is it going to take my job? Probably. Am I still going to have a different job and be ok? Probably. Maybe more than okay. Anyway, this book was all about learning more about how the technology behind what we collectively call AI has gotten to where it is now, and it was fascinating for someone who has been casually watching for a while and is now very much affected.

    DeepMind was the company that Demis Hassabis co-founded, and it was the first to develop an AI that beat the best Go player in the world with an original move never before seen (move 37). The first to develop an AI that solved the protein folding problem (AlphaFold). Now DeepMind and its technology have become Google’s Gemini AI. Demis also got their early start in AI via video games, working with Peter Molyneux on different games and eventually his own.

    Here is one interesting excerpt from the book that ties the AI revolution to the Industrial Revolution. I thought it said a lot about the inevitability of the technology to continue being driven forward but also just made you kind of go, Huh, that is crazy…

    “…suppose that at the start of the Industrial Revolution we had found out about energy and engines, but then imagine that there was no coal or oil in the ground.

    After all, there didn’t have to be! Dead dinosaurs and ancient trees just waiting there for sixty million years, ready to be dug out. It’s kind of unreasonable if you think about it.

    Why wouldn’t they just decay in the ground and become useless? Quite convenient that they didn’t!

    And maybe that speaks to another conversation we could have about what’s going on here. Why would we have this coincidence.”

    Neither of these resources had to be there, the dead dinosaurs or the internet. Humanity built the internet for a different purpose. For sending messages and sharing information and then for e-commerce and whatever. But, kind of amazingly, we woke up one day and realized that we’ve got the equivalent of oil.

    Once you’ve seen that there is oil, the right policy is: We should drill it.

    …why otherwise would the world be constructed like this? Why would science be possible? Why should computers be possible? What about semiconductors? Why should sand, with a bit of copper, do anything?”

    He’s got a great point. I love the grounding that computers (silicon) are really just sand and a bit of metal. How is it possible that we can/are starting to really make them think!?! Mental…

    Also, I’ve been reading this book alongside another, very different book about AI called Project Maven. That book is about the AI being integrated into the US military, and it parallels and dips into the same world as The Infinity Machine often, making for a great partner read.

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  • Scenes from Dallas

    Some random pics from a recent trip to Dallas over the week of June 29th.

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  • The Slip

    The Slip

    Have you ever read an author that could describe you and everyone you know better than you could? Who could make observations cut so deep you question whether you are paying attention to your own life? This is how I felt after finishing The Slip by Lucas Shaefer, my most recent fiction read after The Golem and The Jinni.

    It was superb and also difficult to describe.

    As the NYT says:

    Lucas Schaefer’s “The Slip” is a maximalist debut that brings to mind Zadie Smith’s “White Teeth” and Nathan Hill’s “The Nix” in its stylistic brio, vivid sociological detail and general air of chutzpah. Trying to summarize it in an 800-word review is like trying to paint a mural on a postage stamp. Suffice it to say, you’re unlikely to read a more impressive first novel this year.

    Typically how I select books is by coming across recommendations and/or the occasional best-of list. That was how I found The Slip. I didn’t know anything about the book going in, just that it was supposed to be good. That it was broadly dealing with the themes of race and sex was very much secondary to the fact that it was just a beast of a story told so well.

    I didn’t want it to end.

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    Kav and I watched the House of Dragons season premier last night. Sawyer was also pretty into it, apparently. She sat like this for quite a while.

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    Love this sign. It basically is just saying fun stuff ahead. 👍🏼

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  • June reading update

    June reading update

    My beach book was The Golem and Jinni by Helene Wecker. I picked it up randomly from the library in one of the recommended sections, and something about it piqued my interest. I’m always up for good fantasy (and sci-fi) fiction, so maybe that was it.

    I really enjoyed it. Had no idea that it is a series, so I’ll probably check books 2 and 3 out now too. Highly recommend it if you are into well-written fantasy/adventure tales.

    Here’s a description:

    Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to serve as a wife for a Polish emigre who then dies at sea on the voyage to America. Chava is left unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York Harbor in 1899.Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free. Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker’s debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.

    In terms of other books, I’m midway through The Slip by Lucas Schaefer and am looking to start The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby and Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant next.

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  • Crackazat, Vince Staples, Boards of Canada, and more of my favorite albums from June 2026

    Crackazat, Vince Staples, Boards of Canada, and more of my favorite albums from June 2026

    My birthday month, Father’s Day, and summer solstice: June is such a great month, and there was lots of good new music too. I also got on some oldies too, like Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle and Melvin Spark’s Spark Plug, both of which are classics. Sunny days are here indeed.

    Crackazat – SUN

    Who is this dude!? What’s with the crazy name? Don’t know, but the music is so damn good.

    Vince Staples – Cry Baby

    When I heard this was a rock concept album (from a hip-hop artist) I was prepared to dislike it but it, uh, rocks. I like it a lot.

    Boards of Canada – Inferno

    I’ve never listened to this band, but it looks like they are well-loved/lauded in the general musicdom. It’s ambient and instrumental and I’m really digging it as a work/morning soundtrack.

    Rosa Brunello – We Are Surging Waters

    Crazy energy, percussion, and horns on this. Great jazz album.

    Family Worship Center – Only Visiting

    Sounds old but it’s new. In a good way.

    Johnny Blue Skies – Mutiny After Midnight

    Johnny Blue Skies aka Sturgill Simpson is my kinda country dude.

    Mabe Fratti and Bill Orcutt – Almost Walking

    This album is incredible.

    Other albums that I’ve been jamming to:

    Remember to support the artists you love, and if you want to peruse some of the previous new music posts from this year, do it!

    🗒 Featured image: Rosa Brunello

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  • The water heater right of passage

    The water heater right of passage

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    I feel like we finally cross a right of passage in home ownership.

    Our water heater split open in the top-floor attic, spilling water through the ceiling in the laundry room and generally inciting a frenzy of panic for 24 hours, after which we are many thousands of dollars poorer and now the owners of a new tankless water heater.

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    Back of the water heater split open
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    Drain pan also leaked at the drain gasket

    I’ve spoke to several neighbors who have had this same thing happen to them over the years, including a neighbor a few doors down just a couple months ago. I thought it wouldn’t happen to me, but what other outcome would there be really? Proactively replace the water heater, just because? BEFORE it fails? Does anyone really do that? The water heater was 9 years old. It felt like we could get a few more years about it. Seemed like it was running strong and steady. They don’t exactly give you many signals that they are about to burst.

    In retrospect, it seemed like a gamble, and in gambling the house (water heater) always wins.

    Regardless, I think we escaped the worst. The water damage was pretty small (we caught it just as it was starting). A quick trip to Lowes for a shop vac saved us.

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    In the end, I’m happy with the new unit and even happier I don’t have 40 gallons of water above my living space anymore that might someday come pouring down on me.

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  • Another jalapeño update

    First crop is in, and I fried some up today and put the rest in the freezer to become jalapeño jam in the not-to-distant future. I fried up the most redish ones. Spicy and delicious!

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    The first six – got about a dozen total in the first crop
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    Seeds in for sure.
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