I love this thread and this question. I'm going to argue that it's Francis Ford Coppola. His Filmography in the 1970's I think captures America, the myth and the realities, for both their glamour and horror, better than anyone else before or after.
1972 -- The Godfather -- This encapsulates the American Dream better than anything else. It captures the arc of an immigrant story, of fitting in with America, and what it takes to succeed.
1974 -- The Conversation -- Chronicles where America is going as technology and politics changes and the impacts on our culture, through one man at the center of it.
1974 -- The Godfather Part II -- The story of an America and the image that it's built up, and the bloodshed necessary to both get there, and to cleanse its hands from the past.
1979 -- Apocalypse Now -- The sins of a nation that's ascended, and how the rest of the world must deal with America, and what it does to the psyche of those charged with empire building.
There's a body of work there that captures America in its totality more comprehensively than what anyone else has done. If I had to reduce this down to one choice, then it's simply The Godfather.
This is definitely valuable. I started paying attention to MCP security vulnerabilities largely because of Defcon. I believe that they largely focused on Agentic Security as a theme this time around.
It's a bit mind blowing how we've simply accepted non-technical people within orgs in particular executing code to "automate their tasks" without the same level of rigor that normal code reviews go through. Definitely think that this is a cultural issue that we must fix.
And these MCP vulnerabilities in particular seem much scarier because almost all MCP tools require an insane amount of permissions.
I thought this article is a great example of how services don't need to overcomplicate their tech stack. Using simple tools and focusing on GTM is so much better than adding complexity. I'm a big fan of Levels and what they have cooking over there.
I used the iPad Pro before the redesign for school.
Currently a lot of my friends use the device as a second screen because they're always traveling. Secondly, many content creators use it as a portable workstation because it works really well for certain types of editing. I personally prefer Lightroom on an iPad to the one on the computer. Lastly, it's my favorite media consumption device. I've been thinking of turning in my iPad Air for the newest iPad Pro because I want the improved screen.
If I wanted to learn how to build an algorithm that can create shadow profiles from say a set of data/inputs, where would I best learn that short of working on this at Facebook?
I like the name construction physics. There's a lot of value to be unlocked throughout the whole construction process by figuring out where the inefficiencies are particularly in financing IMO.
There's this company called Shepherd or something like that that does build insurance and it's a fantastic example of how to make something meaningful.
Is there a particularly good book on the history of math/analysis that would be worth reading? I assume it would overlap with these types of computation a lot.
I don't have anything to add except that for some reason, I viscerally remember the first time I heard of Tay-Sachs disease in a high school classroom through a video about genetics.
Something made me feel so disturbed about this one disease above all else because of the seeming hopelessness of the situation coupled with the rampant cruelty of how it kills kids from the inside and seemingly reverses developmental progress.
I don't know why I just remember the moment I learned about this, but this is great news. Hopefully this is the first in many such therapies.
1972 -- The Godfather -- This encapsulates the American Dream better than anything else. It captures the arc of an immigrant story, of fitting in with America, and what it takes to succeed.
1974 -- The Conversation -- Chronicles where America is going as technology and politics changes and the impacts on our culture, through one man at the center of it.
1974 -- The Godfather Part II -- The story of an America and the image that it's built up, and the bloodshed necessary to both get there, and to cleanse its hands from the past.
1979 -- Apocalypse Now -- The sins of a nation that's ascended, and how the rest of the world must deal with America, and what it does to the psyche of those charged with empire building.
There's a body of work there that captures America in its totality more comprehensively than what anyone else has done. If I had to reduce this down to one choice, then it's simply The Godfather.