Posts

Things Ive learned serving on the board of the Python Software Foundation

My podcast with Dan Faggella Dan Faggella recorded an unusual podcast with me that’s now online. He introduces me as a “quantum physicist,” which is something that I never call myself (I’m a theoretical computer scientist) but have sort of given up on not being called by others. But the ensuing 85-minute conversation has virtually

In praise of randomness I have to admit that the first time I ever encountered the book A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates I was incredibly perplexed. Cracking the cover of this 400-page tome, originally published in 1955 by the RAND Corporation, I found it contained nothing but page upon page of

Notes on running Go in the browser with WebAssembly

Wendell Berry on the benefits of writing without a computer We often take for granted that most writers in the modern era perform their work on computers. Like most bloggers, I’m composing the first draft of these very words on a computer. Indeed, for the vast majority of writers, amateur and professional alike, the physical act of writing is synonymous

Notes on OpenAIs new o1 chain-of-thought models

Notes from my appearance on the Software Misadventures Podcast

Quantum fault-tolerance milestones dropping like atoms Update: I’d been wavering—should I vote for the terrifying lunatic, ranting about trans criminal illegal aliens cooking cat meat, or for the nice woman constantly making faces as though the lunatic was completely cracking her up? But when the woman explicitly came out in favor of AI and quantum computing

Ivan Illich on how technologies create radical monopolies As society moves to replace what have traditionally been analog processes and infrastructure with digital equivalents—a phenomenon rapidly accelerated by COVID-19 and our desire for “touch free” interaction—it has become increasingly difficult to get by without access to a smartphone. From restaurants foisting QR codes for access to menus on

Some Helpful Links for Technical Managers Some Helpful Links for Technical Managers