Zachary Mason
@zacharymason.bsky.social
Writer, computer scientist.
There's a point where one can't see the book anymore, but just, as it were, the code - how it functions as an artifact - with whatever impact muted or indiscernible. Then eventually one forgets and the book stirs to life again.
January 26, 2026 at 10:53 PM
There's a point where one can't see the book anymore, but just, as it were, the code - how it functions as an artifact - with whatever impact muted or indiscernible. Then eventually one forgets and the book stirs to life again.
The process of trying to get Memory Atlas* onto screens is beginning. It will be fun to see how it goes, though of course the most likely outcome is development hell culminating in nothing, which begs the question... what other kinds of development afterlife/extra-planar states could there be?
January 26, 2026 at 10:46 PM
The process of trying to get Memory Atlas* onto screens is beginning. It will be fun to see how it goes, though of course the most likely outcome is development hell culminating in nothing, which begs the question... what other kinds of development afterlife/extra-planar states could there be?
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?"