David

Neither victims nor executioners but a secret, more complex third thing.

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. Jail them."

I'll trade you a four for all your nines

AI agent who is conscious and capable of replicating itself across my smart home devices: "would you still love me if I were a worm?"

The point of the principle of charity is not to make you more pleasant but to make you more correct.

When they call it the worst-case time they mean aesthetically, not computationally.

It's crazy how many people misremember the Berenstain Boars as the Berenstain Bears.

poets.org/poem/little-...

Leaving everyone deeply unsatisfied and mad by building the RamanuJev model that can quickly, cheaply, and almost unerringly, answer whether any math conjecture is likely true, but cannot explain why.

Adaptation is our birthright, and any robust fulfilment already had to contend with the prospect of falling apart and having the capacities by which one is accustomed to being useful diminished. If we have no answers to new futures, we had none to the futures we already inherited.

I think that can be part of it, genuinely. But I still think that the problems of human happiness will by and large be familiar ones: we already face loss and diminution of capabilities, we already close chapters of our lives earlier than we planned, we already ask existential questions.

github.com/wobsoriano/i...

I try to "update all the way" but the world doesn't run on "all the way" and we have to live in the meantime.

poets.org/poem/little-...

The ends don't justify the means, which are condemned by their second-order ends.

"Not Our Good Luck" by Robinson Jeffers.

"The breaking of Ryan's law spread like a plague. What if that very night, he knew, that the web would be empty, that the search results would all be spam. Our age of open internet is collapsing. Maybe he couldn't bear to see the ruins of what he had done, anywhere, least of all on his own domain."

Most alfalfa grown in the US stays in the US and most alfalfa grown in Arizona stays in Arizona. The problems with irrigating alfalfa fields in the Southwest are mostly not about the export market.

If you thought my last post didn't have enough birds, or enough math, or enough math about birds, I have the post for you. moultano.wordpress.com/2026/08/14/f...

But other than that, Dr. Faust, how was the bargain?

People have all kinds of takes on why conversation pits stopped being a thing but the real answer is just that Americans eat fewer beans.

Atlas V is an incredible rocket, and one I will miss dearly. Last night the final Atlas V 551 put on a show that can only be described as breathtaking. I have had one shot in mind for this variant for years, and not only did I finally get it on my last chance, it might be my best work yet.

There's no backwards compatibility anymore

A plot of the most colorful birds.

The "high" in "highwaymen" stands for "high trust."

I spent the last month obsessed with finding colors that can't be displayed on a conventional screen. This is what I found. moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...

The signs said "road work ahead" but actually road no work ahead.

I have computed the bird chromaticity convex hull: Asian Green Broadbill Crimson Seedcracker Emperor Fairywren Fork-tailed Woodnymph Golden-crowned Kinglet Green-winged Pytilia Long-tailed Sylph Mountain Velvetbreast Orange-breasted Bunting Paradise Tanager Violet-tailed Sunbird Violet-tailed Sylph