Credit: Unsplash / Patty Spahr There’s a concept in computer science called explore vs. exploit. Exploitation means using what you know to get reliable returns; exploration means trying new t…
Large-Scale Study of Curiosity-Driven Learning
Burda*, Edwards*, Pathak* et.al. (* equal contribution, alphabetical order) Large-Scale Study of Curiosity-Driven Learning. 2018.
Quickly Training Game-Playing Agents with Machine Learning
Posted by Leopold Haller and Hernan Moraldo, Software Engineers, Google Research In the last two decades, dramatic advances in compute and connecti...
Information foraging
Information foraging is a theory that applies the ideas from optimal foraging theory to understand how human users search for information. The theory is based on the assumption that, when searching for information, humans use "built-in" foraging mechanisms that evolved to help our animal ancestors find food. Importantly, a better understanding of human search behavior can improve the usability of websites or any other user interface.
AI’s Hacking Skills Are Approaching an ‘Inflection Point’
AI models are getting so good at finding vulnerabilities that some experts say the tech industry might need to rethink how software is built.
Search has its own bitter lesson
Human incentives to make content findable to your search matter more than technology
On Taste, Effort & Curiosity - again
When AI collapses how long it takes to ship, what’s left is judgment, experimentation, and knowing what not to build.
Comprehension Debt - the hidden cost of AI generated code.
Comprehension debt is the hidden cost to human intelligence and memory resulting from excessive reliance on AI and automation. For engineers, it applies most to agentic engineering.
Reclaiming the Computing Commons
Hunter writes: The commodification and exploitation of nature; the enclosure of the intellectual and informational commons in medicine, agriculture, and other areas of technical knowledge; the expropriation of public space to secure profit-all define an economic system supposedly premised on freedom.
Programming is Forgetting: Toward a New Hacker Ethic - Allison Parrish | Open Transcripts
It's easy to interpret any criticism of the hacker ethic—which is what I'm about to do—as a kind of assault.
Study Hacks - Decoding Patterns of Success - Cal Newport
The Study Hacks blog by author and professor Cal Newport - on deep work, success, productivity, work-life balance.
How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt
The term technical debt is often used to refer to the accumulation of design or implementation choices that later make the software harder and more costly to understand, modify, or extend over time...
‘AI gravity’ is pulling you toward dependency. Here’s how to push back | MIT Sloan
AI systems hold the promise of competitive advantage, but they can usher in cognitive decline among workers, says MIT Sloan School of Management’s Eric So. Learn how to protect cognitive capital.
‘AI gravity’ is pulling you toward dependency. Here’s how to push back | MIT Sloan
AI systems hold the promise of competitive advantage, but they can usher in cognitive decline among workers, says MIT Sloan School of Management’s Eric So. Learn how to protect cognitive capital.
Small Programming Tricks
A lot of effective engineering comes from the accumulation of small nuggets of knowledge.
🌿 Foraging in High-Dimensional Data
My talk from the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute 2025 on how we can draw from thinking in complex systems science and game design to heal our relationship to the Web.
The Friction I Don't Want to Lose
I love learning. And while the friction of solving new problems is increasingly traded for speed, the experience gained by overcoming that friction is as important as ever.
