I like the 'stack

links and sundry

Weird Nerds are being driven out of their natural habitat (academia), which is a problem because we need Weird Nerds like Katalin Karikó to make Important Technologies like mRNA, says

Ruxandra Teslo

. “Any system that is not explicitly pro-Weird Nerd will turn anti-Weird Nerd pretty quickly.” To which I say: give us your nerds, your addled autists yearning to speak free, the disagreeable who refuse your teaming bores.

“Oh, I’d love to be serious, but in this economy?”:

Adam Mastroianni

on what it means to be serious in science and in life. Bonus points for introducing me to my new favorite anti-drug commercial remix.

Culture is not just about getting what you want: I made the case on Substack Reads that there are two futures of media, and that we should also find a way to fund the one that doesn’t end in wireheading AI-generated VR TikTok porn until you die. I tell myself that the price of working on stuff that matters is overcoming your fear of sounding like a stoned freshman philosophy major in public, and this was good exposure therapy.

WWMD (what would Mills discuss) about WWDC (nobody knows what this stands for)?

Mills, 𝔄𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔱𝔯𝔬𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔒𝔟𝔩𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔞

breaks down the Apple event: LLMs are a feature, Apple always makes people mad, hopefully they keep delivering the dang mail.

Speaking of Mills: Does he believe in god? How much can one man vape during a podcast? If you somehow missed our conversation, you might still be wondering.

Dwarkesh Patel

told me that his favorite time being interviewed might have been right here, so be sure to check out our conversation about the origin of Substack, podcasting, AI, and practical philosophy. Note the careful phrasing! He graciously avoided comparing my hosting skills to his own, which, honestly, thank you.

Notable Notes

(the joke here is that I know you’ve already seen this good lil dog)

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See you next time, if I ever do this again I guess!

h/t Can of Soup, where “we like the stock” jokes also work