link.dump.10.21.2025
Testing termites for their level of agriculture skill is incredibly fascinating while, at the same time, realizing that there are some jobs that I am amazed people get paid for. Is this the pursuit of knowledge for pure knowledge or is this something that gives us more power over or own environment?
Detecting Earthquakes with AI makes complete sense to me. This is right up there with AI’s reading X-Rays. Or Terraform plans. I have done some volunteering at Zooniverse where, effectively, humans processing power it being used to identify things we just cannot automated perfectly and it’s exactly the type of knowledge work that human error trickles into.
Maybe the Easter Island statues walked to their final resting place? All you need is 18 people working in two pairs of nine so…seems legit? Humanity - we get the job done. Even if it was a weird fucking job to want to do.
Everyone wants nuclear and that’s awesome. I expect this sentiment to grow and since we will always need more electricity you love to see it.
A prediction about how programmer will not be done by humans at all in a couple years vs. you cannot predict how this stuff goes done, you can only plan to adapt. Shot and a chaser I guess. I actually think they’re both right. Programming doesn’t need humans, but systems do need humans and the mental models we build to solve problems inside the systems aren’t something the machine can handle yet. I have no problem with Squirt not being a programmer, but I think he’ll be just fine with his curiosity and propensity for solving problems.
Conjecture that the AWS outage was because of brain drain. This sounds nice - the outage came because of RTO and Amazon not keeping their senior engineers happy. It might even be true, but the thing is it won’t matter. My favorite example of Cloud Computing is that you should think of it as a utility. And the thing about a utility is that it’s not subject to the same market forces as, say, buying a new car. The outage will have some conversations and then be promptly forgotten until and unless we start seeing a never-ending collection of outages. And that won’t happen because even if you don’t have the magic seniors in positions anymore it’ll be a “good enough” solution to keep the utility dollars flowing.
Humanity has been changing our environment for millennia. Now we’re going to start changing ourselves with DNA editing. “Like amateur gods, we are beginning to author living organisms.” This is a favorite topic of mine but this piece does a great presentation of how this is moving at a breakneck speed just like AI. It’s just a little more abstruse but Squirt will be thinking about this hard when he decides to be a dad I suspect.
The dawn of the post-literate society is a scathing condemnation of where the world is finding itself in regards to reading. The fact it’s something like 2,000 words that none of the people it speaks to are going to read it is something else. I align incredibly strongly with this author’s take but am a little bit less doom and gloom as I subscribe to the belief that diverse mental activity is best. Games, TikTok, whatever…if all you’re doing is reading and writing I think you’re doing yourself a disservice in 2205. Though I still think short-form video is a very bad thing if I had to pick a side.
I feel like such an outlier because I *read*. Seems like everyone else is does all their consumption over video/audio. I do get the appeal of those things, but I'm still happiest with a book. I'm not even a luddite about it - I read almost exclusively on an iPad.
Related but humorously not aligned: most of the time, I have Siri read your substack emails to me.