🦃 Tofurkey Time (#8)

November has been a month of high highs and low temperatures. It’s not snowing yet, but the leaves have fallen.

This last month brought with it the most special events so far. My residential college (Stiles!) Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. The Harvard/Yale game was the best sports experience of my life. The Ezra Gala last night was a blast. And I’m looking forward to the upcoming First Year Holiday Dinner.

Classes have begun accelerating towards the finish line. I feel extremely engaged and a bit exhausted - even though I just returned from Thanksgiving break. I love Thanksgiving - it’s probably my favorite holiday (food being a major factor).

I’m thankful for a lot of things this year.

At the end of every “How I Built This” podcast with Guy Raz he asks his guest what they attribute their success to - hard work or luck. While I’d like to think I’ve worked hard to be where I am, I also feel incredibly, extremely lucky. I’m grateful for my family and amazing friends. And you, dear reader!

🚀 Updates

Friday V3 is out! Add the Friday extension to your browser to use AI to find what you’re searching for and get unstuck faster: https://go.friday.education.
I’ve been working on a class research project that aims to increase accuracy in text generated by large language models.
Obligatory comment about how I hope to get this FreeCodeCamp course out soon - my goal is to finish it over winter break.

💭 Thoughts

(3 things I've been thinking about this month)

Why Github Copilot's Generated Code Should Be Fair Use: Recent advancements in Al mean computers can write code. I discuss why that code, and the process that creates it, should be fair use under US Copyright law.
Forget Web3 - You Should Be Excited About NLP: From essays to art, I discuss the exciting possibilites and challenges within the space of natural language processing.
The Centralization of Decentralization – Why Blockchain Isn’t Being Used To Eliminate Platforms: I discuss why Web3 has given rise to new dominant, centralized platforms.

👍 Recs

(2 articles, 2 novels, 2 videos, 2 tv/movies)

🗞 Generative AI: A Creative New World
🗞 Pandemic learning loss: why zoom school failed
📗 "The Nix” by Nathan Hill
📘 “The Lost Metal” by Brandon Sanderson
📺 AI Learns to Escape (using Reinforcement Learning)
📺 Egg drop from space
🎬 ”The Big Sick” by Michael Showalter
🎬 “Mad Max: Fury Road” by George Miller

Thanks for reading :)

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