I’m a big fan of British TV show Utopia (2013). I’ve seen it 3-4 times by now. I can’t say why. I think it’s the color, the music, the earnestness. It’s probably the opening scene of the first episode that really hooked me. The two killers (Arby and Lee) let themselves into a closed comic book shop. One (Arby) asks the clerk questions, the other (Lee) calmly walks from person to person, killing them. ...

I’m editing something right now. My mantra is: “Remove the boring.” I read the piece again and again and again. As soon as my attention starts to drift: “Boring!” I start skipping over lines: “Boring!” I detect any repetition in the immediate vicinity: “Boring!” I then come back and cut. Hack. Slash. Trim. Nothing is deleted. Instead content is moved to a scratch document. It may be resurrected in the future. Who knows? ...

I’m a fan of Solaris by Stanisław Lem. I’ve probably read the book a dozen times. Here’s a terse synopsis from Grok3: Solaris by Stanisław Lem is a science fiction novel published in 1961. Set in the distant future, it follows psychologist Kris Kelvin, who arrives at a space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris. The planet’s vast, sentient ocean possesses the ability to probe the minds of the station’s crew and materialize physical manifestations of their memories and subconscious desires. For Kelvin, this takes the form of his deceased wife, Rheya, forcing him to confront unresolved guilt and grief. ...

I read a lot of books, but yesterday, I was thinking that I read too much. I finished reading The Invisible College by Jacques Vallée. Now, he’s a hard scientist and pretty critical, but he still says wild shit. But rather than get all riled up, I just shrug. In fact, I’d be happy to read more of his books. I see it all as entertainment. Something to consume and think about. It may as well be a scifi book. ...

The Netflix mini-series Midnight Mass was fun. I like pretty much everything that Mike Flanagan puts out. The midnight club was probably better, the fall of the house of usher was probably not quite as good. And on. But my favorite part of Midnight Mass? It was when we see how the old priest meets the “angel” in the desert. From R1: Pruitt, who is much older and suffering from dementia at the time, is on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. During a sandstorm, he becomes separated from his group and stumbles into a remote cave. Inside, he discovers a strange, winged creature that appears both angelic and monstrous. The creature is pale, emaciated, and has large, bat-like wings, but it also exudes an otherworldly, almost divine presence. ...

I re-read House of Leaves over the last few nights. Not all of it, just Navidson’s story as told by Zampano and as put together by Johnny. I skipped the footnotes, I skipped Johnny’s story, I skipped the Whalestoe Letters. Navidson’s story is fun. It’s also a quick read. If it were a novella, it would be great. Maybe the experts have other options, but I don’t think the footnotes of fake academic citations add anything. I don’t think doing fancy tricks with the text helps (well, maybe on the first reading). ...

The first draft is just the beginning. A short stop before the real work begins. And the first draft is no good. It’s complete shit. The first draft of anything is shit – Ernest Hemingway The first draft only captures the first ideas. You’re not done. Far from it. Read it, just five things wrong with it, fix those five things, repeat. Repeat until you run out of time or you get sick of it. ...

When I’m working on a larger project, my brain want’s to get all distracted. To go off and read “news” or “socials”. To do anything other than the next step to move things forward. Especially after finishing a task. This may also happen at the beginning of a work session before starting a task. We’ll it did before I really dialed-in my warm-up routine. I have a trick to pull myself out and get back to it. ...

I was thinking about how sauna is supposed to reduce all cause morality, according to some random paper. I asked GPTSearch to find the paper and summarize the data. We found: Association between sauna bathing and fatal cardiovascular and all-cause mortality events (2015) (I didn’t read the paper, the numbers below could be hallucinated, I’m just having fun this morning) Summarized by GPTSearch: Data Summary: Frequency of Sauna Use: 1 session per week 2-3 sessions per week 4-7 sessions per week The study found that compared to men who had one sauna session per week, those who had 2-3 sessions per week had a 24% lower risk of all-cause mortality, and those with 4-7 sessions per week had a 40% lower risk. ...

I just tripped over a cute tweet by sama + gpt4.5. pic.twitter.com/pGe6AOHbhs — Sam Altman (@sama) March 3, 2025 He was asking if we are close to the singularity. GPT4.5 responded, yes, and that we are already beyond the event horizon. The rationale is that AI is already influencing human thought, creativity, communication, and identity. Good reasoning. I agree. But by that reasoning, the long ramp started decades ago. I guess we’re going exponential soon-ish. ...