books – Basement Whatever

Quote of the Day

Our entire antiquated process of adversarially writing high-stakes laws on paper at the last minute, deploying them in production to hundreds of millions of people without any testing, and then getting them interpreted in unpredictable ways by regulators and solicitors will be seen as a bizarre relic of an older time. Paper laws will goContinue reading “Quote of the Day”

What is “reality,’” according to physics?

I wanted to get a sense of what reality is really like, at least based on what scientists say. So I picked up copies of The Order of Time and Seven Brief Lessons of Physics, by the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli. These were my takeaways. An overview of what reality is Reality.We are immersed inContinue reading “What is “reality,’” according to physics?”

A reading list about health

Making healthy food choices in our modern food system is today’s equivalent to foraging. Foraging is the skill of identifying edible weeds and plants in nature. People with this skill gained more nutrients. People who lacked this skill had less. Similarly, the modern food system provides a bounty of health for people who can navigateContinue reading “A reading list about health”

Sapiens – as a blog post

The author summarizes the entirety of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens into a single blog post. Sapiens makes the case (among other things) that the agricultural revolution was not particularly good for humanity, though it brought some good things. I spent over 25 hours building a cut-down version of Sapiens. The goal? Future-me should be happyContinue reading “Sapiens – as a blog post”