musicbox 1st generation author

a renaissance man, fun, intellectual, nerd, multicultural, and genuinely good person; at least this is how i see him. as someone who is a regular reader of his essays, i can say his ideas, insights, and overall demeanor in both professional and everyday life make him a role model worth emulating. his education is equally extraordinary (as mentioned above).

in a y combinator interview, he mentioned how, while working on the website they later sold to yahoo, he and his friend stumbled into the dark web out of curiosity. if i remember correctly, they were at harvard's library when the fbi detained them. during the interrogation, his friend explained, 'we were just curious to see what's going on there.' after a long questioning session, they were placed under fbi surveillance for a while. classic hacker stuff, right?!

oh, and here's a photo of him (he's the second from the left).

watching cartoons during breakfast. i enjoy it just as much as i did when i was a kid. jetsons just ended, and now i'm starting the wonderful adventures of nils. and to preserve that innocence and those lofty feelings, i am absolutely, not binge-watching. no way, never.

this year's nobel prize in physics is actually going to the masterminds behind chatgpt. john hopfield and geoffrey hinton are the winners for their groundbreaking work in machine learning and neural networks.

these two scientists used fundamental physics principles to develop methods that form the foundation of today's powerful machine learning. john hopfield created an associative memory that can store and recreate patterns like images in data. geoffrey hinton invented a method that can autonomously discover features in data, enabling tasks like identifying specific objects in images.

at a time when ai has become so embedded in our lives, i think it's safe to say this is a well-deserved award.

yet another new experience has just been announced, called "train for gladiator ii glory." among all the other icons, this one is arguably the most iconic. it's set to take place in the actual colosseum in rome, and they've shared a bit about it on their site. it will feature real gladiator fighting. *

i'm not sure if they'll be choosing actual fighters for this, if not, it might be boring to watch. and will there even be a mass audience allowed to attend? so many questions... it's happening on november 27th, so i guess we'll just have to wait and see.

what i like about this entire icon series is how airbnb focuses on individual experiences rather than trying to cater to everyone, yet still manages to capture the attention of a large audience.

there's a lot of heated debate about whether something like this should even be allowed, but honestly, amidst all the crazy, bad things happening in the world, why not let a crazy good thing like this happen? can't we just enjoy something, even for a little while?

aaand here's their promise: (i'm sold!)
"you will feel the adrenaline rush, the sand between your fingers, and the weight of your armor. you will hear the echoes of gladiators past in the colosseum's catacombs and the unmistakable clank of steel in its arena. you will see the moon's reflection off the travertine stone through the sweat dripping down your face. you will become a gladiator."

one of those books that opened a whole new window to my view of life. i started looking at mice, dolphins, and even the plants around me in a completely different way. i also feel the need to give a shout-out to those dusty pages with the meat-eating conversation at the restaurant at the end of the universe, and that hilarious bit about the robots going offline because of arthur's demand for the perfect tea :)

(and no, i'm not even gonna dive into the whole 42 thing). also i dedicated the limeguide footer note to this masterpiece:

"creating limeguide is our desperate attempt to make "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" a real thing --minus the intergalactic hitchhiking... for now."

if only they could stop treating every subject like a scientific case, they might actually succeed in fitting into society to some extent. as camus said, the world is absurd and doesn't align with rationality. what they're doing is like dissecting the laws of physics in a cartoon. yet, if you approach the world with the mindset of a child, embracing the absurdity and integrating it, you'll find joy. but every time you question the nonsense, you're pulled deeper into loneliness and depression.

an intj is often alone; even those who manage to blend in with society have a world inside their heads that includes only their own understanding, no one else. subjecting widely accepted societal principles and values to a rational filtering mechanism and mocking them isn't a common practice.

so, from the start, society positions them as "different," which inevitably leads to experiencing social interactions in ways that are unlike anyone else's. those who keep these thoughts to themselves feel the weight of social pressure, while those who boldly voice them are seen as cold or rebellious because they perceive themselves as being on a different plane from others.

if this opposition to the values that shape modern society isn't controlled, it can morph into an overwhelming ego, leading to the destructive depths of isolation. i'm not talking about the kind of loneliness where you can't grab a few beers with friends, that's easy, you can fit in for a while.

what i mean is not a lack of people around you, but the gap in understanding between you and them. it's the kind of isolation where you know you can't communicate what you feel, and you have to bottle up the topics that excite you so intensely because you know others will remain indifferent.

this is precisely why, in a tyranny where the abnormal is considered normal and the majority oppresses the minority, an intj's unmet need for the basic human desire of "being understood" drives them to despise society.