Liam Zebedee
Recent content on Liam Zebedee
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Seinfeld Scripts I downloaded all of the Seinfeld scripts from seinology.com and wrote scripts to extract the scripts and put them into a SQLite database. Feel free to message me if you want the DB file. Instructions mkdir scripts python download.py scripts Fix any issues in the data (See CHANGES MADE TO DATA) ./run.sh seinfeld.db scripts Database Schema Episode sqlite> .schema episode CREATE…
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Analysis: John Carmack at Facebook’s “Deep Thoughts Engineering Speaker Series” Host: Kent Beck Speaker: John Carmack (CTO of Oculus VR at the time) Topic: Ideas and Engineering Executive Summary This talk, hosted by Kent Beck as part of Facebook’s inaugural “Deep Thoughts Engineering Speaker Series,” features John Carmack discussing his philosophy on ideas in…
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John Carmack: Ideas & Engineering - Core Ideas (Compressed) The Idea Myth Ideas are vastly overvalued compared to execution “An idea is worth exactly one bottle of scotch” (Heinlein) The “lone inventor with brilliant idea” narrative is mostly false Most “unique ideas” are either obvious to insiders, fatally flawed, or incoherent A good project =…
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John Carmack: Ideas and Engineering Facebook Deep Thoughts Engineering Speaker Series (Hosted by Kent Beck) Introduction by Kent Beck Welcome to the inaugural Deep Thoughts Engineering Speaker Series. My name is Kent Beck. I help engineers educate themselves at Facebook in various ways. Just a second about the series. One of the things I noticed in teaching engineers—I do a lot of one-on-one…
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welcome to the inaugural deep thoughts engineering speaker series my name is Kent Beck I help engineers educate themselves at Facebook in various ways and just a second about the series the one of the things I noticed in teaching engineers I do a lot of one-on-one teaching is young engineers don’t seem to understand just how deeply really good engineers care about what they do so the the…
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Comprehensive Analysis: Kenny Werner’s Master Class in Jazz Performance and Creativity A multi-dimensional analysis of the core ideas, methodologies, and philosophical frameworks presented in this masterclass. Table of Contents Core Performance Philosophy Practicing Methodology Mind Mastery and Mental Control Honest Self-Assessment and Growth Transformation and Teaching Authenticity and…
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Kenny Werner Jazz Masterclass: Core Ideas Compressed The Zone & Performance The zone is created by not criticizing yourself during performance Performance is about not being careful - your safety net is internal Self-criticism breaks the groove; your reaction to notes disrupts flow Practice loving every sound aggressively before you have time to evaluate “Carnegie Hall, Carnegie…
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A Master Class in Jazz Performance and Creativity with Pianist Kenny Werner A transcript from ArtistsHouseMusic Opening: The Invitation to Dialogue I’m going to throw it open if you have a question on anything involving anything in the world—I can answer it, you know. Nuclear Physics, transportation in the 19th century, trade with China… Do you know anything about the Yankees? Yeah,…
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I’m going to throw it open if you have a question on anything involving anything in the world I can answer it you know Nuclear Physics um transportation in the 19th century uh trade with China you know do you know anything about the Yankees yeah they won the war anyway okay so you can if you don’t know you can formulate something you want or you can you know we can just begin yes you…
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Analysis: Richard Branson - “Life at 30,000 Feet” TED Talk A comprehensive analysis of Richard Branson’s TED interview with Chris Anderson Executive Summary This TED talk, conducted when Branson was 56 years old, covers his business philosophy, personal adventures, challenges with dyslexia, legal troubles, family values, and his evolving views on philanthropy. At its core, the…
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Richard Branson: “Life at 30,000 Feet” - Core Ideas Business Philosophy If you can run one company, you can run any company Companies are about finding the right people, inspiring them, and drawing out their best Reputation is everything - “it’s a very small world” Treating people well creates sustainable competitive advantage The ruthless business stereotype…
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Life at 30,000 Feet: A Conversation with Richard Branson A TED Talk Interview by Chris Anderson Introduction Chris Anderson: Welcome to TED. Richard Branson: Thank you very much. The first TED has been great. CA: Have you met anyone interesting? RB: Well, the nice thing about TED is everybody’s interesting. I was very glad to see Goldie Hawn, because I had an apology to make to her.…
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Chris Anderson: Welcome to TED. Richard Branson: Thank you very much. The first TED has been great. CA: Have you met anyone interesting? RB: Well, the nice thing about TED is everybody’s interesting. I was very glad to see Goldie Hawn, because I had an apology to make to her. I’d had dinner with her about two years ago and I’d – she had this big wedding ring and I put it on…
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Analysis: Richard Feynman’s “Fun to Imagine” A comprehensive analysis of the core ideas, teaching methods, and insights from Feynman’s legendary physics discussions. Executive Summary “Fun to Imagine” represents Richard Feynman at his pedagogical best—transforming complex physics into accessible, wonder-filled explanations. The transcript covers topics ranging…
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Core Ideas: Feynman’s “Fun to Imagine” (Compressed) Physics Concepts Heat & Thermodynamics Heat = atomic vibration speed; faster atoms = higher temperature Heat transfer = momentum exchange via atomic collisions Energy is conserved but transforms: ordered motion → disordered thermal motion Atoms are perfectly elastic (never lose energy); macroscopic objects are not Surface…
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Fun to Imagine - Richard Feynman A transcript of the legendary physicist Richard Feynman discussing physics, imagination, and the nature of reality. Part 1: The Joy of Science and Imagination 有趣的是，有些人觉得科学很简单，而有些人觉得它枯燥又困难。尤其是小孩，有些小孩只是照单全收。我不知道为什么，也许所有学科都一样。比如说很多人喜欢音乐，而我却永远跟不上调，我也因此失去了很多乐趣。 同样我认为，那些觉得科学枯燥的人也失去了很多乐趣。 就科学而言，我认为使得它很困难的原因之一就是——科学需要丰富的想象力。很难想象出所有这些离奇的物体本来的面目。 Part 2: Heat, Cold, and…
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有趣的是，有些人觉得科学很简单 而有些人觉得它枯燥又困难 尤其是小孩，有些小孩只是照单全收 我不知道为什么，也许所有学科都一样 比如说很多人喜欢音乐，而我却永远跟不上调 我也因此失去了很多乐趣 同样我认为，那些觉得科学枯燥的人也失去了很多乐趣 就科学而言，我认为使得它很困难的原因之一就是 科学需要丰富的想象力 很难想象出所有这些离奇的物体本来的面目 任何事物都不是它看起来那么简单，比如我们熟悉的冷热 冷和热取决于原子振动的速度 原子振动越快，对应就越热，反之越慢就越冷 如果你有一大堆原子，比如说一杯咖啡啥的，放在桌上 杯里的原子振动很厉害，不停地撞击杯子内壁 杯子受到了振动，于是杯子本身的原子也加强振动 它们相互撞击，杯子就被加热了，周围的东西都被加热了 然后热的东西仅通过接触就把热量传播给其他的东西 因为热的物体中原子振动更剧烈 使得冷的物体里不活跃的原子跟着振动起来…
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Analysis: Reaching the Five Deeps with Victor Vescovo A comprehensive analysis of the key themes, insights, and lessons from Victor Vescovo’s conversation at the Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles about the Five Deeps Expedition. 1. Risk Management Philosophy Victor Vescovo articulates a sophisticated approach to risk management that bridges his military intelligence background, business…
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Core Ideas: Victor Vescovo’s Five Deeps Expedition Risk Management Accept 90% confidence for first attempts at the unknown—10% failure risk is acceptable for breakthrough ventures Confidence intervals improve with each iteration; the first attempt is always the most dangerous The line between adventurous and reckless is “being an absolute expert at risk management” Design for…
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Reaching the Five Deeps with Victor Vescovo A conversation at the Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles Introduction Rich Mayfield: Welcome to the Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles. My name is Rich Mayfield, member 1211. I’m here tonight with Victor Vescovo. Victor, thank you so much for coming. We appreciate you coming out. We’re here tonight to talk about your Five Deeps…
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all right welcome to the adventures club of Los Angeles my name is Rich Mayfield member 1211 I’m here tonight with Victor vovo now Victor thank you so much for coming we appreciate you coming out um we’re here tonight to talk about your five deeps Expedition but I want to start I want to kind of get to know who you are first and and how you got to this point so get we always like to…
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My work Entrepreneurship. Dappnet. Featured in $50k raised. Mergeswap. ETHW to Ethereum bridge using storage proofs. $100k volume. Employment. Synthetix - protocol engineering. Keep Network / tBTC - protocol engineering. Work. UX designer at Vivant. Software engineer at WiseTech Global. Veredictum. Community. Started a meetup with 350+ members, 2 cities (Sydney, Brisbane), monthly meets since…
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Why Elon Outcompetes Everyone — Eric Jorgenson Interview: Deep Analytical Breakdown The Core Thesis: Why Elon Outcompetes Everyone, Mechanically Jorgenson’s central claim — the reason he wrote The Book of Elon — is that Musk is “an outlier among outliers” not because he is 10,000x smarter than other people, but because his operating principles multiply rather than add. The…
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Why Elon Outcompetes Everyone — Compressed Core thesis Musk’s edge is multiplicative, not additive: 3x across 5–6 dimensions ≈ 243x, stack more and you get ~4 orders of magnitude — which is what his output looks like vs peers. He’s not a freak genius; he’s the only operator running the full integrated stack. The stack is derived and teachable (“learned the algorithm by…
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Why Elon Outcompetes Everyone — A Conversation with Eric Jorgenson Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with Eric Jorgenson, author of The Anthology of Balaji and a new book on Elon Musk. I think it’s super important for more people to understand how Elon operates, so I wanted to do this conversation. Why Elon Outcompetes Everyone Interviewer: Let’s start with why Elon is able to…
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Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with Eric Jorgensson who is the author of the book of Elon. And I think it’s super great for more people to basically understand how Elon operates. And so I wanted to do this conversation. Let’s start with why is Elon able to out compete everyone. » This question is exactly why I wrote the book because I think he is absolutely singular…
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WTF is Happening at xAI: An Interview with Sulaiman Ghori A conversation with an engineer at xAI about the company’s culture, speed, and mission to build human emulators. The Speed of xAI Tyler took this bet with Elon: “Get a Cybertruck tonight if you can get a training run on these GPUs in 24 hours.” And they were training that night. He got the Cybertruck. “My first day…
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Tyler took this bet with Elon like get a Cybert truck tonight if you can get a training run on these GPUs in 24 hours and we were training that night. » Did he get the Cyber Truck? » Yeah, he got Cyber Truck. » My first day they just gave me a laptop and a badge and I was like okay now what? I don’t even have a team. I’ve not been told what to do.
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General: The law is beautiful Notes I like: How to build a house Biology in Brisbane Different shapes of thought Technical posts: How does Tendermint work? IPFS, BitTorrent Synthetix simulated liquidity AMM IPFS vs. BitTorrent Stateless SPV proofs Taxonomy: P2P vs. Federated vs. Cryptonetwork Anatomy of a STARK proof Understanding recursive ZK proofs A deep dive into StarkNet Categories: x y z…
2025 Move to Transformers
Stripe: https://x.com/thegautam/status/1920198569308664169 Netflix: https://netflixtechblog.com/foundation-model-for-personalized-recommendation-1a0bd8e02d39 X/Twitter: https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/tree/aaa167b3de8a674587c53545a43c90eaad360010/phoenix Questions: what would a foundations model look like for crypto? what use cases?
A translation book between software and machine learning
Types int, float, bool, Fixed size vector. Code: [float; 32] Math: $\alpha \in \mathbb{R_d}$, where $d=32$ Type conversion. softmax converts real numbers to probabilities logprobs are $log(P)$. why? because when we are doing sequence modelling, we multiply probabilities - P(x1) * P(x2). If the probabilities are small, the precision is vanishing. Whereas for logprobs, multiplication is defined as…
A translation book for finance terms that mean "losing money"
Impermanent loss Toxic flow Liquidations Slippage Spreads
About me.
Currently completing How To Grow Almost Anything at MIT — synthetic biology, biological CAD & modelling, DNA design & assembly, genome engineering, CRISPR, protein design, directed evolution, cell-free systems, biomaterials, biosensors, plant & mammalian synthetic biology, biofabrication. Engineer, founder, and writer. I build things and write about how they work. A few of them: Dappnet — a way to…
Bootstrapping in computer systems
Bootstrapping is something interesting that happens in computers. Compilers. Bootstrapping in compilers refers to the process of writing a compiler for a programming language in the same language it is intended to compile. Initially, a minimal version of the compiler is written in another language (like assembly or C), just enough to support writing more of itself. Once this minimal compiler can…
Changelog
New Pages Leader leases versus quorum writes — 141 words Crash versus Byzantine faults — 256 words Notes on LLM anti-intelligence — 263 words Edited Pages Cryptography and blockchain: - Tech: - Uxtreeo - Bitcoin Core PR review group - A Formalization of Cross-Domain Maximal Extractable Value - Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) - Tiny BFV HE implemented in Tinygrad - How does a skip ratchet work?…
Crash versus Byzantine faults
In a crash fault, a process simply halts. In a Byzantine fault, it can behave arbitrarily. Crash faults are easier to handle, as no process can lie to another process. Systems which only tolerate crash faults can operate via simple majority rule, and therefore typically tolerate simultaneous failure of up to half of the system. If the number of failures the system can tolerate is f, such systems…
Crypto-product market fit
Current areas. Crypto has found product-market fit in: Alternate stores of value. Bitcoin is being proposed to be added to Microsoft’s corporate treasury. You can measure the correlation of an asset with other asset categories. Diversification is your free lunch. And bitcoin serves useful purpose as being sufficienly uncorrelated, among other properties (seizure resistant, fixed monetary…
Elon Company Philosophy
Core Ideas: xAI Interview with Sulaiman Ghori The Speed Philosophy No due dates exist—everything is “yesterday” No artificial blockers; only physical/fundamental constraints matter Attempt 1-year projects in 1 month; you’ll finish in 2 months (still 6x faster) Every time estimate is based on assumptions—audit and eliminate them for 2x+ speedups Organizational Structure Only 3…
Everything is design and validating design (testing) in software
From What Is Software Design?: The overwhelming problem with software development is that everything is part of the design process. Coding is design, testing and debugging are part of design, and what we typically call software design is still part of design. Software may be cheap to build, but it is incredibly expensive to design. Software is so complex that there are plenty of different design…
Fallacies of distributed computing
The network is reliable; Latency is zero; Bandwidth is infinite; The network is secure; Topology doesn't change; There is one administrator; Transport cost is zero; The network is homogeneous;
Index2
Science Crypto Programming Distsys Economics ML Biology Aliens Quantum House construction (TODO add) Trading, prediction market making (TODO add)
Maths
Papers A Mathematical Theory of Communication - defined entropy for the first time. On Tables of Random Numbers - Kolomogrov complexity.
Misc
Unfinished notes. Mathematics Culture People Notes on Quantum Computing Notes on Machine Learning Entropy 2040 hedge fund AI’s inside MPC circuits To read Hypothesis testing Graphical Depiction of Ethereum Scaling Solutions
Natural things as ML systems
Evolution. Evolutionary landscape talks about: fitness function environment organisms genes (the selfish gene) evolution This maps onto ML systems pretty well: fitness = objective function/loss. environment = the distribution. evolution = optimizer. genes = the parameters. the genome instantiates a generative model of the organism
Never Play to the Gallery - David Bowie
Asking “what problem does World of Warcraft solve?” is dumb. It turns the product’s definition inward on itself, self-referential. “we must be fixing a problem” does not produce creative ideas. It constrains the ideas. What problem does WoW solve? Boredom and entertainment. This is indeterminate - many things solve this. Focusing on solving problems is a narrow, fixed-supply mindset. Broadening on…
Notes on 2040 hedge fund AI's inside MPC circuits
I think that autonomous AI’s will develop primarily as a matter of comparative advantage but applied to intelligence. They will sit on problems for days, weeks, and months in “system 2” mode (deepthink). Unlike humans, who require NDA’s to prevent leakage of proprietary information, these corporate AI’s can be run as pure algorithms inside encrypted secure multi-party…
Notes on abstraction in mathematics versus computer science.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/#PragCorr Colburn (1999, 2000), while keeping software and hardware apart, stresses that the former has a dual nature, it is a “concrete abstraction” as being both abstract and concrete. To define software, one needs to make reference to both a “medium of description”, i.e., the language used to express an algorithm, and a “medium of execution”,…
Notes on Aliens
Confirmed UAP’s 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg Hundreds of schoolchildren saw a UFO in Melbourne, Australia 1966 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
Notes on B Trees
Although BST’s and B-Trees share the same asymptotic complexity of O(log n) for all operations, the specialisation of B-Trees are often more performant in practice. By specialising their order (number of keys in a node, and number of children per node) to fit into the block size of the underlying media (sectors for HDD’s, cache and block-based storage for SSD’s), they can reap the benefits of…