Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Hey mate. Lovely to see you again, as always.

I ended up getting these cards printed at clickmedia.com.au to take with me on Wednesday to ElectroneX:

John's business card for In The Lab With Jay

I mentioned Iain McGilchrist, he’s a psychiatrist who dabbles in philosophy. I think he has a really excellent and interesting view of things. It’s hard to summarise his position but he is very interested in the difference in perceptive capabilities of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. He has a YouTube channel over here: @DrIainMcGilchrist and if you search for him you will find many a fascinating interview.

You told me to check out Succession (TV series).

I found the Four Corners video you mentioned, over here: Self-defence or genocide? Asking Israel’s powerful voices about Gaza | Four Corners.

I mentioned Eben Moglen, who has a website over here: moglen.law.columbia.edu. I find Eben inspirational. He’s always talking in grandiose eloquence about the importance of free software, if you search for him on YouTube you are bound to find something of interest.

I mentioned Annie Jacobsen, she’s a pretty interesting cat. She has written a number of books on conspiracy-theory-like topics. I recently read her book Nuclear War: A Scenario.

I have a note here that says “positive view on nihilism” but I forget what that was about. Something I wanted to tell you, now lost to time. But searching for ‘positive view on nihilism’ turns up a bunch of interesting results! (Oh. Wait. Found it! It’s a video I wanted you to see: Optimistic Nihilism.)

Oh, another note I don’t remember: “void of ‘huh'”. I assume we were being hilarious.

There is an urban myth that the first human projectile that made it into space was a manhole cover from nuclear testing facilities for Operation Plumbbob in 1957. I dunno if it’s true, but it’s a good story!

The Brain User’s Handbook: A Neuroscience-inspired Guide to Peace of Mind

I am reading The Brain User’s Handbook: A Neuroscience-inspired Guide to Peace of Mind which has this awesome image I want to share:


An imagined interaction between a human baby and a young LLM in training. They are sharing impressions about the endeavor of modeling the world from scratch. Image generated with DALLE-3 via ChatGPT