Week 18 of 2025- W182025
Enjoy yourself
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my current or any previous employer. This blog may also contain links to other websites or resources. I am not responsible for the content on those external sites or any changes that may occur after the publication of my posts.
End Disclaimer
Enjoy Yourself. It's Later than You Think
— Guy Lombardo
AIML
“There is no capability threshold that will lead to sudden impacts”
Sycophancy in GPT-4o: What happened and what we’re doing about it - You look particularly enchanting today Mr. Otakar
A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment -
“ChatGPT uses 3 Wh. This is enough energy to: Leave a single incandescent light bulb on for 3 minutes. Leave a wireless router on for 30 minutes. Play a gaming console for 1 minute. Run a vacuum cleaner for 10 seconds.”
The Hottest AI Job of 2023 Is Already Obsolete - Prompt Engineer as a desired stand alone job is a stand-up sketch
Length of Coding Tasks AI Agents Can Complete Autonomously:
Dream 7B: cool illustration of how a text diffusion model works
Epoch AI: What went into training DeepSeek-R1? -
“DeepSeek-R1 is approximately on par with the best version of o1 OpenAI serves via API while being around 30 times cheaper to the consumer. This difference is probably mostly due to OpenAI’s large markups, though we can’t rule out some of it being due to R1 simply being a more efficient model.”
Quanta: When ChatGPT Broke an Entire Field: An Oral History -natural language processing
Painting
The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #27 (Marvel Cover 1976), Earl Norem (1923-2015)
Cyber
How a Single Line Of Code Could Brick Your iPhone -
“This is the story of how I found one of my favorite iOS vulnerabilities so far.”
How we identified a North Korean hacker who tried to get a job at Kraken
Crypto
Robots
Wired: Poop Drones Are Keeping Sewers Running So Humans Don’t Have to
Driverless trucks are rolling in Texas, ushering in new era
“Drivers along a 200-mile stretch of I-45 between Dallas and Houston should get ready for something new: The semi-truck in the next lane might not have anyone in the driver's seat.”
Markets
WSJ: Why There Will Never Be Another Warren Buffett
Capital Spectator: Major Asset Classes | April 2025 | Performance Review -
The Atlantic: Something Alarming Is Happening to the Job Market -
“A new sign that AI is competing with college grads”
Bloomberg: West Wing Video Games, Ice Cream Raids: Musk’s 100 Days of DOGE -
“He’s slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, raided a White House freezer for Haagen-Dazs ice cream and played video games from his West Wing office.”
Misc
NYT: Hikers Stumble Upon a Pile of Gold Coins, Igniting a Historical Hunt -
“Who buried the treasure?”
Watching OpenAI's o3 Model Sweat Over a Paul Morphy Mate-in-2 -
“When I gave OpenAI’s o3 model a tough chess puzzle, it behaved almost like a human: thinking, doubting, retrying, and finally googling the answer.”
From Postgame Door Dashing To Make Ends Meet to Bengals Draft Pick, Demetrius Knight Already Is a Success Story - great story
Forgers and fraudsters trusted him for decades — but he was an undercover FBI art detective
Why Momentum Really Works (2017)
Games
SKYJO- Had good friends of ours show us this game. Easy to learn and very playable. I found myself shouting out SKYJO!!!! a lot during the games. Feels good saying it. SKYJO!!!!
Crokinole - Buy a set, thank me later. I have this starter one (affiliate link). Super fun.
Podcasts for a Road Trip
The Superhero Complex - superpower-less humans get dressed up in costumes and fight crime in Seattle
Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen
Books
My Favorite Business Mischief Books
4 books I’ve read and 5 books I want to read
AI and ML Reading List: My Favorites