All the crap you never needed

October 31 2025 X Platform, Algorithm Changes, and Grok New feature: "Disgraziad Corner" First recipients: Jason Calcanis and Pete Buttigieg for virtue signaling about past work at Amnesty International Algorithm (the "torrent" issue) Previously a bug hid posts from followed accounts Overcorrection added too much gain: any interaction produced a torrent of similar content Mostly fixed now Benefit: interest-based algorithm provides a 360-degree view on subjects Legacy code and deletion Gradually deleting legacy Twitter heuristics Removing one bug can reveal another that was previously covered Future updates Add a curated Following tab Grok will surface most interesting posts from friends/followed to cut through prolific posters Grok's scale and role Platform handles ~100 million posts per day Grok to read, understand, categorize, and match top 10 million posts to users daily Requires substantial compute, estimated on the order of 50,000 ...

  All In Interview - Pete Buttigieg - October 30 2025 Characterizing Silicon Valley people as rich men who are pragmatically supporting the Republicans because their policies support the rich Claims false equivalencies between Covid era censorship and FCC head threatening action against comedians criticizing President’s policies Claims richest people pay too little in taxes Refutes criticism of his record (not) building chargers with tax payer money Claims it needs till 2030 Claims US workers need to build chargers, else could have bought from China if things were needed to be done faster Claims < 1% of money given to US govt is wasted/fraud Claims 2023 issues with FAA, etc are due to needing more funding Claims credit for 0 air crash fatalities out of 4B passengers in the air during his tenure Claims private sector couldn’t have done the internet Admits he didn’t reduce his budget as City Mayor - claims it was put to better use Debt is unsustainable Claims we ne...

 October 28 2025 Background and the tragedy of oil wealth Political context María Corina Machado (MCM) won the Nobel Peace Prize shortly before this interview. She won the presidential primary in October 2023 but was disqualified from the general election. MCM appointed Edmundo Gonzalez as her surrogate candidate. The opposition claimed 69.12% of the general election votes, contradicting Maduro's declaration of 51% victory. Oil reserves and history Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world at roughly 300 billion barrels. The economic boom started after oil discovery in 1914 and accelerated in 1922. The economy transitioned from investment by the "seven sisters" oil companies to nationalized oil production . Lesson Venezuela, once among the richest and freest countries in the Americas, has become one of the poorest. Natural endowments are not wealth; wealth requires talent, institutions, and freedom to turn resources into well‑being...

October 27 2025 Early Life/Education Grew up in San Pedro, California. Father was a smart, non-high school educated fireman who built things in the garage, giving JM an empirical view of physics. Loved high school physics due to the math and concepts involved. Undergraduate: UC Berkeley (finished degree in Astrophysics, after switching from Physics and Math). Graduate School: UC Berkeley; studied under John Clark , focusing on quantum mechanics and electrical devices. Anthony Leggett: Nobel laureate (2003) for work on superfluid helium-3. Posed the critical question that led to JM's Nobel-winning experiment: Do macroscopic objects behave quantum mechanically? Core Concepts of Quantum Mechanics (QM) QM Focus: Developed to describe small things (electrons, atoms, fundamental constituents). Probability: QM uses probabilities (wave functions) to describe the location, energy, and movement of particles. It is non-intuitive and non-deterministic. Waves: Electrons a...