Andrew Benesh > Recent Status Updates

The idea of electric and synthetic instruments challenging Western ideas of music is fascinating. I kind of want to buy a cheap theremin now....

The discussion of how having access to recordings changes the way music is interpreted is neat. The kids that listening to music alone was akin to masturbation or secretive drinking is fun to compare with modern norms.

The chapter on the design of performance (from musical layering to visual presentation) has some great anecdotes. I feel like the focus could have been tighter, but the evolutionary structure does tell a compelling story.

I like the way context is explored in the first section. The balance of acoustics with behavior and meaning makes sense, and has interesting historical and sociological components.

Done! I liked the resolution with the parents, but the final meeting felt anticlimactic. I feel like there was room to tell a bigger story there, or to open a clearer door to a sequel. Still, I appreciate the effort to frame different relationships with the force. The age thing still bugs me.

I like how the big reveal was done - the attention to relationships sells it. It's interesting to think about the character arc parallels between this and TROS; I wonder if they might be a little too close honestly. Overall it's still a fun read, and I look forward to the conclusion.

I like the way the Batuu-Takodana arc is composed. They manage a lot of tie one very quickly and keep the flow. I appreciate Karr's general cluelessness, and Maize's wordplay and contrasts to teen norms.

The Jakku adventure had some great callbacks. I feel like the characters seem to be inconsistent in their maturity levels, but it does keep things fun.

Why does everyone always want to go back to Jakku?

This is definitely targeted to younger readers, but it seems to have a lot of fun references to old materials. I like the idea that people find the Jedi stories incredulous. I wish we got a little more development of both protagonists - they feel a little John
Green to me. The puberty bit in the beginning was a nice element to include.

Done! I liked the use of symbolism and the ever increasing blur between reality and dream. Oswaldo's end felt right somehow. I understand why some threads were never fully tied up, but I do wonder if we see more of the human cost is this is they were pursued.

This has escalated quite a bit. The surrealism is getting intense.

That interview piece could have been straight off Fox News. The funeral symbolism and Bellacosa's wandering capture a deeply uncomfortable tone.

You can feel the plot simmering, just waiting to break out into full chaos. This is noir done well.

This is getting weird, and it's fantastic.

The trufflepig remove me of the old urban legend about KFC chickens that were bred to be nothing but meat.

The child with the trufflepig seems weirdly knowledgeable, and feels like a dark harbinger.

This feels very noir. I like the character work - everyone is unfolding in neat ways, and I like how their identities morph.

Chapter 1 sets an interesting tone. I appreciate the effort to bring modern issues into dystopian fiction.

Done! The rest is footnotes!

I enjoyed the last chapter the most - it tied things together well, and made the thesis actionable. I particularly enjoyed the attention to actions by governments, corporations, and individuals as distinct but related categories. I feel like this succeeds where many of our politicians fail in recognizing larger contextual issues around inequality.

The measurement chapter has some great ideas, but out seems to unintentionally highlight that the core concept to be measured is poorly defined and subject to unhelpful rationalizations. I also wonder how inflation prone they might be - especially the GPI. Regardless, they're good first steps towards moving away from a pure GDP system.

I'm really enjoying the analysis of the interactions between economic inequalities and climate change.

I appreciate the recognition that the proposed system is idealistic, as well as the critique that the idea of a free market is idealistic as well. The Gross National Happiness Index is a neat idea that I want to look into more.

The first two chapters lay out big ideas that are worth pursuing, especially around interdependence. That said, they don't navigate complex ethical quandaries well, and seem to risk taking superficially less harmful actions that might not be best in the long term. There is some discussion of this issue, but I wish there were more.

The intro makes a good case for the benefits of an economic system grounded in human liberation rather than profit maximization. I look forward to seeing more nuanced discussion of ways to enact this. Given the immediate context of a continent literally on fire and nation's about to go to eat over egos, it seems like a good reading choice.

Done! The rest is footnotes. I especially enjoyed the section on adversarial attacks, and the strangeness of for image recognition works. The discussion of humans masquerading as AI was surprising, but in the context of realistic AI abilities it made sense. All in all a good book!

Overfitting models is THE WORST.

The illustrations of the problems of reward conditions are clear and compelling. It's smasyhing that any AI works.

I love the dedication to the cockroach lab. Good explanations of the different algorithms in chapter 3, though it felt heavy on image recognition.

I like the granular discussion of how memory problems and problem complexity limit AIs. At the end of the day, investing in mass transit is probably better than focusing on self driving cars - the errors make sense, but are horrifying.

This feels very "Smokin' Aces". There's so much going on, and yet almost nothing going on. Nothing is real, which is the point.