I’ve added a new Media section to the site—a curated collection of books, lectures, talks, and other resources that have influenced my work and thinking. It’s part recommendation list, part intellectual autobiography.
Why Track This?
We are, in large part, what we read and watch. The books that stay with us shape how we frame problems, what questions we find interesting, and even the vocabulary we use to think. I wanted a place to make that influence visible—both for myself and for anyone curious about the intellectual foundations behind the work on this site.
The collection spans several domains: AI and machine learning, mathematics, computer science theory, programming languages, systems, and a smattering of science fiction and philosophy. These aren’t random—they reflect the threads I’ve been pulling on for years.
Some Highlights
A few items that stand out, not necessarily as “the best” but as particularly formative:
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
SICP remains, decades later, one of the most important books I’ve encountered. It’s not really about Scheme or even programming—it’s about computation as a medium for expressing ideas. The way Abelson and Sussman build up from simple primitives to interpreters to register machines fundamentally shaped how I think about abstraction and the layering of meaning. If you haven’t read it, the full text is free online, and the MIT lectures are worth watching as well.
Rich Hickey: Language of the System
Hickey’s talks are always worth watching, but Language of the System stands out for articulating something I’d felt but couldn’t express: that the problems we face in system design are often problems of language—of finding the right vocabulary for composition, the right primitives for combination. It’s an engineer-philosophical meditation on why we struggle to build coherent systems and what it might take to do better.
Protector
This one is personal. Larry Niven’s Protector isn’t the best-written science fiction—but it was my first real introduction to the genre, read as a teenager traveling to and from a construction job. The premise stayed with me: humanity as a “child species,” stuck in an early developmental phase, being quietly shepherded by a vastly more intelligent being who views us with something like parental care but without our moral sentimentality.
The Protector character—utilitarian, patient, operating on timescales we can barely comprehend—shaped how I think about intelligence gradients and what it might mean to be on the receiving end of paternalistic superintelligence. In retrospect, it was an early seed for my later interest in AI alignment.
The Stepanov Lineage
Alexander Stepanov’s work—Elements of Programming, From Mathematics to Generic Programming, and the A9 Lectures—represents a particular philosophy of programming that resonates deeply with me: that algorithms have mathematical essences, that generic programming is about capturing those essences in code, and that good abstractions come from understanding the algebraic structure of what you’re computing. If you care about the foundations of the STL or want to understand why certain APIs feel “right,” start here.
Universal AI and Solomonoff Induction
Marcus Hutter’s Universal Artificial Intelligence and the associated lectures on AIXI represent a kind of Platonic ideal—the mathematically optimal agent, even if uncomputable. Understanding why AIXI works (and why it’s uncomputable) illuminates the deep structure of the prediction-action problem. It’s the theoretical ceiling against which practical approaches can be measured.
What’s Next
Right now, the Media page is mostly a list with categories and status markers. But I plan to expand it:
- Annotations and notes: For items I’ve deeply engaged with, I want to add marginalia—the insights, disagreements, and connections that emerge from careful reading.
- Connected posts: Some books deserve full treatment. Expect future posts that dig into specific ideas from these works.
- Reading paths: Curated sequences for particular topics—“if you want to understand X, read these in this order.”
For now, browse the Media page and see what catches your interest. And if you have recommendations for things I should add to my queue, I’m always looking for the next book that will reshape how I think.
Discussion