Zachary Mason
@zacharymason.bsky.social
Writer, computer scientist.
Finished the substantive editing on the new book. There's more to do but mostly just copy-editing, all fairly unintensive, which means I'm now essentially a passenger, which is always an interesting state. I feel like the book's ghost is leaving my body - publishing as exorcism - Vade retro librum!
January 14, 2026 at 10:31 PM
Finished the substantive editing on the new book. There's more to do but mostly just copy-editing, all fairly unintensive, which means I'm now essentially a passenger, which is always an interesting state. I feel like the book's ghost is leaving my body - publishing as exorcism - Vade retro librum!
A book I'm writing offers in passing a solution to the Fermi Paradox, namely that biological life is self-limiting; within a few millenia of the invention of computers it goes extinct, maybe survived by AIs - thus this silence.
It came to mind randomly but I now suspect it's correct.
Oh well.
It came to mind randomly but I now suspect it's correct.
Oh well.
August 7, 2025 at 8:03 PM
A book I'm writing offers in passing a solution to the Fermi Paradox, namely that biological life is self-limiting; within a few millenia of the invention of computers it goes extinct, maybe survived by AIs - thus this silence.
It came to mind randomly but I now suspect it's correct.
Oh well.
It came to mind randomly but I now suspect it's correct.
Oh well.
A tech-interview question I made up: "You're given an infinitely fast computer. Not merely very, very fast, but *infinitely* fast. What are the coolest things you can do?"
The (disappointing) answers are always 'graphics and cryptography.' Better would be, say, "experimental cosmogenesis."
The (disappointing) answers are always 'graphics and cryptography.' Better would be, say, "experimental cosmogenesis."
July 9, 2025 at 8:01 PM
A tech-interview question I made up: "You're given an infinitely fast computer. Not merely very, very fast, but *infinitely* fast. What are the coolest things you can do?"
The (disappointing) answers are always 'graphics and cryptography.' Better would be, say, "experimental cosmogenesis."
The (disappointing) answers are always 'graphics and cryptography.' Better would be, say, "experimental cosmogenesis."
A prominent entrepreneur in his fifties recently compared himself to Alexander the Great.
Alexander died when he was thirty three. If he'd lived would he have ended up crapulous, pitiful, even grotesque? Would his concubines have said, "Can this be the man who once was Alexander?"
Alexander died when he was thirty three. If he'd lived would he have ended up crapulous, pitiful, even grotesque? Would his concubines have said, "Can this be the man who once was Alexander?"
June 25, 2025 at 6:45 PM
A prominent entrepreneur in his fifties recently compared himself to Alexander the Great.
Alexander died when he was thirty three. If he'd lived would he have ended up crapulous, pitiful, even grotesque? Would his concubines have said, "Can this be the man who once was Alexander?"
Alexander died when he was thirty three. If he'd lived would he have ended up crapulous, pitiful, even grotesque? Would his concubines have said, "Can this be the man who once was Alexander?"