Krista Conger at Stanford Medicine: The new research finding shows that the human brain consists of two ancient nervous systems cleverly packaged together — a more primitive part that regulates our hearts’ beating, our breathing and other functions, and another that makes us distinctly human, capable of poetry, mathematics and wondering about our own origins. The discovery could help explain why scientists have struggled for decades to grow certain types of brain cells in the laboratory — and…

I have what I think might be an alarming and confusing message for you all. It is not fall yet. It is not fall. So just take your hand off the pumpkin spice latte and BACK AWAY. That's right. Keep going. Back to your lemonade. Honestly. Why are we all such dingbats about this? We...Read More

Temple of Dendur – New York, New York I’m switching back to architecture for the final post from inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And what glorious architecture it is. The Temple of Dendur is one of The Met’s most iconic and beloved works. The gallery was specifically designed for Dendur and opened in 1978. The temple was a gift from Egypt to the United States for participating in the rescue of antiquities that would have been submerged by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. More than…

In my previous post about the iPhone Duo I speculated that there was more to the Apple Pencil support story: Regarding Apple Pencil support, I feel like we don't have the full story yet. Currently, Apple says iPhone Duo is compatible with only the USB-C Apple Pencil which has very few features compared to the Apple Pencil Pro. That's out of necessity; without the magnetic connection hardware, there's no way for the Apple Pencil Pro to pair or charge with iPhone Duo. But why is Apple Pencil…

A couple of years ago I had a vigourous argument with a friend over which near-future event held the biggest existential threat to humanity. I felt it was either an accidental or intentional nuclear war, closely followed by some form of (human or naturally evolving) pandemic. She believed it was the collapse of humanity resulting from AI activity. Turns out…I was wrong and she was on point1. We are rushing towards the cliff edge with increasing momentum because a bunch of ultra-wealthy elites…

Disclaimer: due to current events, I have not been able to devote as much time to lecture notes preparation as I would have liked, so I apologize in advance for the unpolished nature of the text below, which has been largely recycled from previous lecture notes I have written. This is the first set of lecture notes for my graduate course 247A, “Fourier analysis”. The course name is rather general, but I will focus the course not on the Fourier transform per se, but on the closely related topic…

That’s what I got told last week by the Nurse from the doctors. I initially went in for some pain in my arm and chest, thinking I was having some form of a heart attack. Apparently it is a nerve thing, probably from my neck. After all of that I went to have a blood test. While there I was talking to some random guy in the waiting room, I learned that he only had one kidney now. Was supposed to stop drinking and smoking but hasn't and it's been that way for many years. Then when I was getting my…

I came to The Pale King with the same skepticism I brought to Infinite Jest — for different reasons. With Infinite Jest, it was that book's thick popular place in the zeitgeist as a quote-unquote bro book. With this one, it was that it is posthumous, and famously unfinished. And not unfinished in the Eyes Wide Shut sense, where the only tasks left were polish and assemblage (as Pietsch makes explicitly clear in the introduction). So one version of this review is an impossible hypothetical: if…

Yesterday, I accompanied my cousin around KLCC area to look for anime manga stores per her siblings’ requests and sightseeing. While I’m one of what folks would consider as “a homebody”, the fact that I am one is precisely why I actually enjoy accompanying my friends/family whenever they want to do sightseeing in KL. I learned a lot about new trends, places, and interesting food from them, hahah. I rarely go out, and when I do, seeing new things helps me reenergize myself. Even on places I…

The Peak Design Roller Pro has made my summer travel a breeze.Like every warm holiday traveller stuck in the Cancun luggage carousel spot, I immediately dreamt of ways to avoid the brutal wait times. “I could play the young child card,” I thought for a second. But that seemed quite inappropriate. “I could jump back there and help them unload,” I thought. But that would likely result in my arrest.“Or we could skip this altogether and travel carry-on only.”I’m far from a genius — these exact…

If you missed it, please read my previous post about these features before continuing. John Gruber at Daring Fireball regarding Live Rewind and Siri Recap: Some people are objecting to the very existence of these features as privacy intrusive. I think they’re pretty reasonably thought out. There are surveillance cameras all over the place now. I was walking home from dinner here in Philadelphia a few weeks ago with a friend visiting from out of town, talking about this, and he stopped midway…

A few days ago a family member was struck - they fell for an email that was disguised as an invite to an event, when it was really a hack. The card attached to the invite was not a card, but instead a download link to an attacker's screen control software.The suspicious email I got.This in turn led to them emailing their entire inbox a similar type of scam which then arrived at my email inbox. I read the subject and immediately thought - "Well I can't make that date" and texted Alyson that we…

I was in France visiting my parents for the first half of the month and recuperating from the trip for the past few days. I thought I'd have plenty of time to write, but it turns out that I didn't write a single line while I was there. Now you know why I was silent.When people visit other countries, there's one thing they should do but rarely do: visit (or even better, shop at) a local supermarket.It tells you a lot about the local population's habits. It's interesting when you visit a country…

I think The Real Housewives have been a net positive for television. Oddly, The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th doesn't do a good job making that argument. But The Traitors does.

A scientist in a fictional European capital works tirelessly on a cure for a deadly epidemic but is stymied by a jealous rival and mass panic as the disease takes hold. Home Media Availability: Stream courtesy of the Danish Film Institute. Worse Than the Disease The First World War had been devastating enough but the […]

It’s time for another Sunday Weave, and this one is totally impromptu. At a big event this weekend before one of the University of Texas games, we run a tailgate that’s gotten to be pretty sizable, and I also DJ. And no one was available for setup. So it was an all-day affair, basically from right after dawn to well into the night. Although the DJ set was only about two and a half hours. I’m always amazed that planning on twice as much music works as well as it does. Being that if you’re DJing…

Mixes up chronology and split-screens engagingly in the last quarter, but it’s too little too late after a 150-minute biopic about a fashion guy. Yves is the A Very Long Engagement boy, his life/business partner is not-blonde-anymore Jeremie Renier, and the hottie who comes along threatening to overturn the whole situation with his hotness is Louis Garrel, while Lea Seydoux and The Emperor of a Thousand Planets hang around without much to do. Very attractive surfaces here, but it hurts to watch…

One thing I didn’t appreciate growing up in Australia was just how beautiful its birds are. They are such a colourful bunch, especially in comparison to the birds around Tokyo which tend to be in varying shades of brown and black. I was recently down in Sydney for a week visiting my Mum and there was plenty of opportunity for bird-watching, even without leaving her house. First up is this absolutely gorgeous kookaburra. Look how pretty its feathers are! Kooky with a friend Another visitor was…

Now that we’ve seen Apple’s new flagship device, and have the simulator to boot (🥁!), I’ve been diving in on adapting Elite Hoops for the new form factor. As Cupertino & Friends™️ note in their tech talks, we’ve been here before. Over its ~20-year life, we’ve seen the iPhone grow taller, become shorter, lose a home button, gain some ears, and then some. Those of us who’ve been around likely already have developed a precocious ability to listen to Apple to handle these changes, and use Auto…

With AI capabilities improving so fast I'm starting to think more about something I wrote about a couple of years ago.Multiple persistent agents that are always working to help you in some way.Not scheduled tasks One way of thinking about this is just today's agents working as scheduled tasks and loops. And that's already possible and it's powerful.But I'm talking about something more than that. I'm talking about autonomous agents. Like team members focused on and skilled in specific types of…

If it drains you, cut it out. If it energizes you, do it more. One week free from social media taught me I’m another junkie. My phone time showed me I was an enemy of boredom—or still I am. Analog Sundays helped me to reconnect. But for some reason, or for some distractions, I stopped following them. And I regretted it. A new social platform, my own expectations, and rushing to chase an imaginary finish line took a toll on my physical and mental health. They cost me two nights without proper…

We had one of our level-up sessions where the players take advances for their characters, take an advance for the Kaul House, and do a little roleplaying about town. Here's what the characters picked up:Ulu took the Artificer edgeMorwenna increased her Spellcasting and Persuasion skills to a d6 eachVarro took the Block edgeAnastasia took the Power Points edgeDario took the Counterattack edgeImperious increased his Strength to a d10Johanna increased her Fighting and Athletics skills to a d8…

On Sundays I try to at least quickly note some of my favorite listening from the week prior — things I would later regret having not written about in more depth, so better to share here briefly than not at all. ▰ There’s a new album out, Friendship Survival Guide, that is a classical-tinged drone collaboration between Adam Wiltzie (of Stars of the Lid) and the late film composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (Sicario, The Theory of Everything, Arrivals). Wiltzie has done several scores, too. Its Bandcamp…

I finished watching Pluribus Season 1 📺 without realizing it was the last episode. Started watching during the Main vacation. It’s different from Gilligan’s other shows, but it’s definitely him, with the show set in a parallel universe to Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

CEOs, who have a vested financial interest in their companies, are telling us AI is “developing too fast”. Don’t look at the devastating climate impact, bubble pumping, financial fraud, broken promises, or predictions that never come to pass, the real threat is just how great our tech is. Good grief! Can you imagine a chorus of defence contractors doing an interview where they agree their weapons are too powerful? Real estate agents everywhere agree: the housing market is just too undervalued!…

As I introduce Jason and Lucy Williams’ children, I’ll go in birth order with one exception: I’ll be saving Martha for next-to-last. You’ll see why once I get to her. Mary J. Williams was born April 8, 1826 in Salem, Washington County, NY, the oldest of Jason’s and Lucy’s children known to me. Sometime before 1850, she married Newman Bowen Carley, a blacksmith from Whitingham, Windham County, VT. I’m not sure how they met; perhaps through Jason who was also a blacksmith. As I mentioned in my…

Turns out the main programmer heavily used AI in the hub world area and didn’t tell artists and collaborators until it was too late. But they did make a pathetic post saying that Valve and Hideo Kojima should hire them and says positive things about company towns?? Explains the bugs in the main hub though. I’ll rewrite the original blog post to explain this further. It’s incredibly frustrating that the artists involved have to put up with this. Those external exhibits are great! Anyone not…

When I go to the Detroit River Hawk Watch along the Detroit River in southeast Michigan, I expect to see hawks migrating over Lake Erie. High in the sky in kettles or streaming in a line over the lake as they head south. And that’s what I saw this week, as 35,000+ Broad-winged hawks were counted as they migrated south. An incredible sight to watch as thousands of hawks migrate over the water. But, along with about three dozen other hawk watchers scanning the skies for hawks, we had what I…