The systems that hold up the world are invisible until they fail. They're boring. They fade into the background. But they are important, more important than anything else— because a society that can't do the basics well? It can't do anything well. You know the technologies. Think hard, squint a

Early to bed, early to rise Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise![1] I wake up at 4 AM whenever I can. I initially laughed at the idea after hypothesizing that it might help my productivity, started doing it out of stubbornness when a friend told me I wouldn't

Large language model (LLM) technology—in which a lot of computation makes a system that can autocomplete text uncannily well—has recently advanced by leaps and bounds. (It’s commonly called “AI,” but I'll avoid that term.)[1] I was first impressed by the field’s progress in the summer

I code primarily in JavaScript,[1] a bad programming language. It was created in 10 days back in 1995,[2] and is unsurprisingly littered with flaws. JavaScript’s strange behavior is a common joke among programmers. Most infamously, it has three different ways to check for equality (==, ===, and Object.is)

Hello! You’re one of the 82 people who get an email for each new thing I write. Previously, I’ve published life updates, travel stories, and a few short essays. I’ve put 3-10 pieces out per year. And my writing process has been careless: I’ve gone all

The inverse of p → q is ¬p → ¬q, and its converse is q → p. This logical proof shows that the converse of a conditional entails its inverse (i.e., that q → p ⊢ ¬p → ¬q): [1] q → p // premise [2] ¬q ∨ p // disjunction from conditional (1) [3] p ∨ ¬q // commutativity of

It’s about the time of life and year for me to send an annual update letter. Instead of killing a tree or two and hunting down some ephemeral physical addresses, though, I figured this email would serve nicely. This way, it also stays online for posterity (https://brennancolberg.com/

I’ve noticed a pattern without a name, and started calling it “anticorrectness.” When you’re anticorrect about something, you’re also incorrect. It’s just more specific: an anticorrect statement is the exact opposite of its correct pair. Basic examples For example: * “winter is colder than summer” is correct[

or,[1] "Why people who think that long words are inherently bad and should never be used—because they might not make sense to other people—are wrong." A common piece of writing advice is to "avoid using long words." According to this line of thought, good communication expresses thoughts

A young Elon Musk, deciding what to do with his life, famously reflected on which upcoming technologies would most impact the future of humanity[1]. His list? "The internet; sustainable energy; space exploration, in particular the permanent extension of life beyond Earth; artificial intelligence; and reprogramming the human genetic code.

Occasionally, an idea pops into my head to do something—but I'm too busy to do it right away. So I tell myself I'll do it later, and move on. But recently I've noticed something funny: these things I say I'll do "later" almost never get done. I think it's

College is a game. In playing it, you can optimize for many different outcomes: status, income, free time, pleasure... or learning. The latter is what I aimed at before leaving; here is my advice—gleaned from both success and failure—to anyone seeking a similar course. 1. Never attend lectures

Trust (confident dependence upon the fulfillment of promises) and honor (the quality of being trustworthy) form the difference between barbarism and civilization. Without them, humans inevitably devolve into backstabbing. If I say that I’m going to do something, it’s important than I then follow through with my promise.

I do tasks on three timescales: they either get done immediately, after a shamefully massive delay, or not at all. There’s little in-between. The latter cases are some of my biggest sources of shame in life. I pride myself on being as reliable and honest a person as possible,

I’m super excited about hovercraft right now. I want to build one. During my reading session today, I finally cracked open Clarke’s “Profiles of the Future”—which is a gem! It’s what I hoped “Engines of Creation” would be (but failed to deliver): a rolling series of

Much of the metric-checking that I have the impulse to do this morning—and previously would have just gone and done—doesn’t really make any difference. So instead of doing it, I’ve been sitting around, thinking about it. Checking my finances; why do that? They’ll be there

[10/12/21] Clarification: when I talk about "tools for thought" below, I am solely referring to the note-taking apps that rally under that banner, not the more general theme. I was thinking about “tools for thought,” the rallying cry of the modern note-taking app proliferation. Are they really helpful