index.md (9173B)
1 --- 2 title: "Dispatch #29 (July 2025)" 3 date: 2025-07-03T10:26:36-04:00 4 draft: false 5 tags: 6 - dispatch 7 references: 8 - title: "Opinion | Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights - The New York Times" 9 url: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html 10 date: 2025-07-01T15:45:49Z 11 file: www-nytimes-com-ne64py.txt 12 - title: "Generative AI as a magic system – Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden" 13 url: https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/24/generative-ai-as-a-magic-system/ 14 date: 2025-07-01T15:45:54Z 15 file: tracydurnell-com-e7ykbg.txt 16 - title: "Toward A Theory Of Kevin Roose | Defector" 17 url: https://defector.com/toward-a-theory-of-kevin-roose?giftLink=0131f06f11f5f3dfe5152b52f0d2f2dc 18 date: 2025-07-01T15:46:14Z 19 file: defector-com-dykuft.txt 20 - title: "Helix" 21 url: https://lmno.lol/puddingtime/helix 22 date: 2025-07-01T15:46:19Z 23 file: lmno-lol-iivfpk.txt 24 - title: "fastcompany.com" 25 url: https://www.fastcompany.com/91352848/field-notes-cult-notebook-started-out-as-a-side-project 26 date: 2025-07-01T15:46:22Z 27 file: www-fastcompany-com-qigvi6.txt 28 - title: "My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts · The Fly Blog" 29 url: https://fly.io/blog/youre-all-nuts/ 30 date: 2025-07-01T15:46:25Z 31 file: fly-io-g1y72q.txt 32 --- 33 34 Big month: birthdays, travel, lots of music. My boy turned one -- time friggin' flies. He is on the move, talking up a storm, and getting into everything. 35 36 <!--more--> 37 38 {{<dither IMG_4835.jpeg "782x600">}}Baby’s first birthday cake smash, with crumbs everywhere and the biggest grin.{{</dither>}} 39 {{<dither IMG_8449.jpeg "782x600">}}Happy picnic smiles: a mom, dad, and two young siblings cuddle together on a park bench under the trees.{{</dither>}} 40 41 We spent a week at [Holden Beach][1] with Claire's family. Great to see everyone, and great to take a proper vacation. Both kids are changing so quickly (Nico starting to walk, Nev taking an interest in swimming and playing piano) and it was nice to take a break from work and spend bunch of dedicated time with them. 42 43 {{<dither IMG_8614.jpeg "782x600">}}Little ballerina twirls through the beach breeze, shell in hand and sunlit curls shining.{{</dither>}} 44 {{<dither IMG_8299.jpeg "782x600">}}Two grinning babies share a porch swing moment, one perched on a parent’s lap while the other stands nearby gripping the armrest.{{</dither>}} 45 46 [Poolsuite FM][2] was the soundtrack to the week, and it inspired me to make a house track one evening. Musically, I spend a lot of time trying to make music that _doesn't_ sound so electronic, so it was nice to sort of lean into it; my little travel music setup is pretty well suited for it. Check it out: 47 48 <audio controls src="/journal/dispatch-29-july-2025/Holden Beach House.mp3"></audio> 49 50 [1]: https://hbtownhall.com/ 51 [2]: https://poolsuite.net 52 53 We then traveled up to Richmond to meet up with my family to celebrate my dad's 70th. Nice to get all the cousins together, if only for an afternoon. The [Richmond Children’s Museum][3] is great. 54 55 {{<dither IMG_8348.jpeg "782x600">}}Two little friends grin in a stroller, proudly showing off their matching stuffed unicorns.{{</dither>}} 56 {{<dither IMG_8357.jpeg "782x600">}}Two tiny watermelon fans share a giggly snack while mom looks on with a proud smile.{{</dither>}} 57 58 {{<dither IMG_8353.jpeg "782x600">}}Grandma shares a cheerful table moment with two grandkids—one laughing in her arms, the other fully focused on a giant lemonade.{{</dither>}} 59 {{<dither IMG_8374.jpeg "782x600">}}Grandpa’s big-laugh bench: four wiggly grandkids, two stuffed bunnies, and one baby mid-squeal under a wall of diner plaques.{{</dither>}} 60 61 [3]: https://www.childrensmuseumofrichmond.org/ 62 63 I took the kids to [Angel Island][4] one evening, where I was able to reproduce this Eisinger family classic: 64 65 {{<dither IMG_8406.jpeg "782x600">}}Baby in a green onesie gleefully pops up amid a sea of brightly colored plastic balls in a play pit.{{</dither>}} 66 {{<dither 3701250281_957a9c189d_o.jpg "782x600">}}Small kid looks worried while swimming through an ocean of green ball-pit spheres.{{</dither>}} 67 68 (That's Nico on the left, and a young me on the right.) 69 70 [4]: https://www.angelislandusa.com/ 71 72 Finally, my buddy Ken and I met up at the Eastern Shore in Virginia (at the same place we stayed [a few years ago][5]). I rented a Jeep Wrangler off of [Turo][6], which was a fun way to try out a car I'll almost certainly never own. We brought a whole bunch of gear and spent most of the weekend making music. 73 74 [5]: /journal/dispatch-7-september-2023/ 75 [6]: https://turo.com/ 76 77 {{<dither jeep_wrangler.jpg "782x600">}}Army-green Jeep Wrangler parked curbside in a suburb, with a red Cybertruck-style pickup in the driveway behind it.{{</dither>}} 78 {{<dither IMG_8448.jpeg "782x600">}}Two friends in a cozy home studio grin at the camera, one pointing playfully as synthesizers and a laptop sit behind them.{{</dither>}} 79 80 Here's a track we made, called "Heat Lightning": 81 82 <audio controls src="/journal/dispatch-29-july-2025/Heat Lightning.mp3"></audio> 83 84 It was cool to make music with another person, something I've never really done before. Ken's process is a lot different than mine, more <abbr title="digital audio workstation">DAW</abbr>-focused, more live playing, less MIDI sequencing (he's an accomplished percussionist & his timing is much better than mine). I definitely learned a lot, and I'm keen to lean more into Ableton. At the same time, the genesis of the track came from just jamming with my Circuit Tracks and a few other pieces of gear, so I still think there's a place for the hardware stuff I'm already doing and enjoying. 85 86 That was a whirlwind of a month. We're headed to Lake Norman for the long weekend, but then hoping to have a slower-paced July. I'd like to get back into running and exercise (despite the heat), get Ableton working well with my setup, and generally just enjoy summer here in Durham. 87 88 ### This Month 89 90 * Adventure: Lake Norman for Independence Day 91 * Project: use Ableton to produce a track (including effects, dynamics, and a mix of sequencing and live recording) 92 * Skill: Ableton 93 94 ### Reading & Listening 95 96 * Fiction: [_Firewalkers_][7], Adrian Tchaikovsky 97 * Non-fiction: not reading much non-fiction these days 98 * Music: [_Iteration_][8], Com Truse 99 100 [7]: https://www.adriantchaikovsky.com/terrible-worlds-revolutions.html#firewalkers 101 [8]: https://ghostly.com/products/iteration 102 103 ### Links 104 105 * [Opinion | Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights - The New York Times][9] 106 107 > Maybe it is hurtful, but you can’t foster social change if you don’t have a conversation. You can’t change people if you exclude them. And I will just say, you can’t have absolutism on the left or the right without authoritarianism. 108 109 * [Generative AI as a magic system – Tracy Durnell's Mind Garden][10] 110 111 > We treat generative AI like magic… and magic systems have rules. When creating fantasy worlds, writers think about who can use magic, how magic is performed, what it’s able to do, what its constraints are, what the source of magic is, and what it costs. I’m applying a bit of reverse worldbuilding to the real world to extrapolate the rules of the AI magic system. 112 113 * [Toward A Theory Of Kevin Roose][11] 114 115 > My suspicion, my awful awful newfound theory, is that there are people with a sincere and even kind of innocent belief that we are all just picking winners, in everything: that ideology, advocacy, analysis, criticism, affinity, even taste and style and association are essentially predictions. That what a person tries to do, the essential task of a person, is to identify who and what is going to come out on top, and align with it. 116 117 * [Helix][12] 118 119 > It's pretty nice! It launches quickly. No plugin system so the futzmonkey sort of has to stay in its cage, but it's very batteries-included. I found a tutorial for setting it up for Markdown that wasn't overwhelming and helped me get a sense of how its config works. 120 121 * [How Field Notes went from side project to cult notebook][13] 122 123 > Two decades after Aaron Draplin and Jim Coudal launched Field Notes, the analog notebook company is crushing it in the digital age. 124 125 * [My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts · The Fly Blog][14] 126 127 > And here I rejoin your company. I read Simon Willison, and that’s all I really need. But all day, every day, a sizable chunk of the front page of HN is allocated to LLMs: incremental model updates, startups doing things with LLMs, LLM tutorials, screeds against LLMs. It’s annoying! But AI is also incredibly — a word I use advisedly — important. It’s getting the same kind of attention that smart phones got in 2008, and not as much as the Internet got. That seems about right. 128 129 [9]: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html 130 [10]: https://tracydurnell.com/2025/06/24/generative-ai-as-a-magic-system/ 131 [11]: https://defector.com/toward-a-theory-of-kevin-roose?giftLink=0131f06f11f5f3dfe5152b52f0d2f2dc 132 [12]: https://lmno.lol/puddingtime/helix 133 [13]: https://www.fastcompany.com/91352848/field-notes-cult-notebook-started-out-as-a-side-project 134 [14]: https://fly.io/blog/youre-all-nuts/