Category: sign on

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of driving, delivering technical lectures and demos, and managing aggravated customers. Not uncommon in my line of work, but where this haul has been constant, the baseline is sporadic. This gave me lots of time behind a windshield and that means a lot of time to think. What did I learn, you might ask?

I hate hotel rooms.

The trips themselves are always disruptive to the normal flow of life, but I always manage to waste away the time in these rooms either working or doomscrolling.

Currently reading: Hard Rain Falling, by Don Carpenter (US)

I picked this one up after I finished part one of The Brother’s Karamazov as a quick palette cleanser. It is far from that. Hard Rain Falling is all at once existential and tragic. Some of these passages are jarring:

He had always know he wanted freedom… and when he was ready, he escaped. That was all. Then he no longer wanted his freedom, because he had it.

The freedom, our narrator later goes on to tell us, to manuever within the system. A system that will swallow you whole if you exercise your freedom. Because the system knows that, when left with their freedom, humans, most humans, become the worst versions of themselves. “You are free as long as you don’t do these things.”

He had found their limits – they would not, could not, just take him out and shoot him, and they couldn’t let him run around loose, because he would not take any of their shit, so they had to lock him up and feed him… all because they had limits – limits that he did not have.

The anti-hero’s lack of restraint forces the system to exercise restraint.

Wrapped in grit and sordid on purpose, this book wrestles with some complex questions you’ll miss if you’re just reading for reading’s sake. Enjoying it.

Currently listening:

Currently working on: Getting everything done so I can be out of the office for 5 days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Currently listening:

Currently reading: The Botanist by MW Craven

Currently working on: Bash scripting, determining how to generate new work

Lots of change in the political landscape of the US took place last night. A sharp reaction to the fatigue that the country’s been under over the last 10 years, to be sure. People are tired. They want to be left alone. They want the system to work for them. You can’t have both though, can you?

Real wealth is poverty adjusted to the law of Nature. — Epicurus

Currently listening to: Selected Ambient Works 85-92 – Aphex Twin

Currently watching: the Buffalo Bills at the Carolina Panthers

Crisp and sunny out today. Perfect Sunday weather.

On the road tomorrow, so send your podcast suggestions.

Currently listening:

Currently reading: After 1177 B.C. by Eric H. Cline (US)

Currently temperature: 71°F – overcast with promises of rain later. The kind of weather for reading.

Currently working on: Clearing out my inbox from a week’s worth of gunk. I’ll be on the road next week and should make sure that most loose ends have been tied up.

Today’s Tao was Chapter 18 – When we lose touch with genuine goodness, we replace it with performative morality. That feels relevant.

Currently listening:

Currently reading: After 1177 B.C. by Eric H. Cline (US)

Finished The Precipice by Toby Ord on Sunday evening. It’s well thought-out albeit a bit out-dated. Written in early 2020, one of the existential risks Ord includes in his list is pandemics, and the irony almost made me put the book down. Some takeaways:

While markets do a great job of supplying many kinds of goods and services, there are some kinds that they systematically undersupply. Consider clean air.

And, notably:

The Anthropocene is the time of profound human effects on the environment, while the Precipice is the time where humanity is at high risk of destroying itself.

One thing he doesn’t highlight is that, quantum computing and artificial intelligence will converge in our lifetime. I’m not sure that we’re ready for that, but I am watching with equal parts optimism and trepidation.

It’s finally cooling down here.

Currently reading: The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (US)

Currently listening:

This morning was an early one, and I spent nearly 6 hours muddling about in the world of post-quantum cryptography. While this isn’t something most people would get excited about, I love learning and I like computers. Although what I learned didn’t give me any real comfort for what were up against over the next ten years.

I’ve long believed that, while things like nuclear warfare and ground assaults are still very much part of the lexicon of modern conflict, that we’ve found ourselves in the unique position of having to worry about conflict on multiple planes: the physical and the digital (which often begets the mental). Different conflicts, to be sure. And most of us seem to be an unwilling participant in at least one (or both).

Production ready and commercially available quantum compute is not far from becoming reality. With that comes a new set of risks and real problems that we will have to deal with. For example, GenAI has accelerated scientific progress but has also enabled bad actors to create and distribute harmful propaganda at speed and scale.

Quantum computing will further accelerate technological, biological, and medical progress but will also completely break all forms of cryptography that protect our digital world. This poses a real problem.

This is such a fascinating time to be alive. Also kind of terrifying.

Current status: Cleaning out the inbox before disappearing into the weekend.

Be kind.

Currently listening: The Sleeping Forecast

Currently reading: The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (US)

Current temperature: 81°F – Clear Skies

If you’ve not heard The Sleeping Forecast before, I urge you to check it out. It’s hypnotic. Thanks to Warren Ellis for the recommendation.

This is my sign of life. I’ve been working on de-toxing from socials again. My Threads account has been deleted, no more X. Facebook is a nightmare, so I hardly login to it anyway. Instagram remains a source of entertainment, but has been completely propagandized. My stint with TikTok was very short. Sleep is coming easier now.

We’re not out of the woods yet. I’ll write more soon. Hold on for now.

The vestiges of Autumn are beginning to reveal themselves here in South Texas and if you are unfamiliar with Fall here, then you are missing out. It’s the most beautiful season here in my opinion outside of a small 2-3 week window when Winter turns to Spring. I plan to capture some pictures this year to catalog here for anyone who might be reading, but more-so for when I get old and start forgetting things.

Currently Reading: The Thran by Robert J. King (Magic: The Gathering Novel). I was recently introduced to the Magic: The Gathering card game by a dear friend, and my lust for expansive lore immediately kicked into gear. I had a blast playing my first rounds, and have carried that excitement from the weekend into my weekly reading. It’s been nice to disconnect from the noise for a bit with some light sword and sorcery.

Currently Listening:

Currently Working On: A large thought exercise and trying to put most of it on paper. The muck and the mire of what is going on politically and geopolitically, as well as some of the metaphysical properties of human behavior involved, have gotten me wondering about our potential as a species in general. I intend to share what I uncover here in the coming days.

Until then, take care of one another. Be nice. Go outside and talk to humans.

Good afternoon from South Texas. The weather outside is what we consider “beautiful” here – lows in the 70s to start the day, highs in the 90s. Autumn is knocking on the door and I am so keen to let it in. Not in the least bit because it’s my favorite season, but because of what happens to the mood in my environment. Yes, we can finally go outside, but also, people are hopeful for the future. We get to wear comfortable clothing. And the soup – my god, the soup.

On a side note, I’m watching in horror as the proliferation of agentic generative AI is already doing what everyone with a working brain thought it would: exposing more supply chains to a larger attack surface.

Don’t get me wrong – the technologist in me is excited that we continue to try and push the boundaries of what is possible as a an intelligent society. But for the love of all that’s decent, I asked ChatGPT to recommend me a book that fit a very specific aesthetic, and it recommended me one of the most boring books I’ve ever read. In fact, I’m adding it to the DNF pile today after having plodded through the first 120 pages over the past week. If GenAI can’t tell me what Google pre-AI used to be help me infer myself, then why would anyone let it make decisions for a business with unfettered access to it’s CRM?

I’m three cups of coffee in and I’ve got lots to do. Will check in later. Enjoy this mix in the meantime: