Zachary Kurtz

Great energy tonight! Got to talk about lab automation, recent advances in bio foundation models and parenting in with some new and familiar faces. Biotech and AI is alive and well in NYC. Hope to make this a recurring meetup at @fractaltechnyc

@__drewface Substack isn’t bad

I want a social media site for people who use and are excited to talk about AI, but do not ever post or comment slop. This actually isn't that complicated, it's basically just asking for high-integrity-technologists. But yea, I would join that site.

@earlboykins Says all you need to know that the Bk Nets cover story was still about the Knicks

5 years is a long time in sports but the failure of that Nets team was fascinating… somehow, a media campaign to slander those players caused the organization panic, which they did.

@srikosuri Last year playoffs I happened to be in Emeryville and stumbled on a small but dedicated Knicks crowd at Yeti Sports bar

What’s the best place to watch the Knicks game in the east bay?

@__drewface In your 20s? 😔

We did the science, we reverse engineered it, and you can literally just see and study and take classes and eat lunch with your friends, every day, on campus, at Fractal

@__drewface Still hasn’t watched the show or have any cards but can somehow identify some of the basic types whenever they pop up

@ledflyd lol, it's interesting to just see incredible memes in the wild. Pokémon is an idea by which a child cannot help but be nerdsniped

okay language explosion is officially my favorite era of parenting so far, I think. every single day I hear like 10 or 20 completely new sentences I've never heard before, mostly new and longer combinations of words, but often many new words as well.

@__drewface Yep - same thing happened to our kid. After a week of school we were hearing all sorts of new stuff. Also somebody told him about pokemon

also, it's no coincidence I think that school is helping her expand her vocabulary and communication skills. After all, she has like 6 additional children, and 3 new adults, to communicate with every day.

@jeskeets Imagine not doing that

Imagine paying $50,000 to watch this in person

@__drewface No to AI, no to dihydrogen monoxide

"I haven't tried chemistry because it just gives me such an ick" "I haven't tried magnets because it just gives me an ick" "I haven't tried boiling water because it just gives me an ick" Please save yourself. Please be curious about the way the natural world works.

"I cannot get over the ick of using AI so I just haven't tried it." Oh my god you are the old conservative that you promised never to grow up into! Listen to yourself! You're the boomer who refused to try Google Maps until their kids were sick of writing directions on paper

@wigglybone LGA?

Blessed to live in a city where I can citibike to the airport

@Aizkmusic Training loop

I suck at machine learning what the hell is this. Can anyone who's really good at AI help me out??

@__drewface Hooray!

first day of montessori school went extremely well for 2yo, who adjusted quickly. Teacher said "are you sure she hasn't been in school before?" the Montessori mats and materials at home have helped build familiarity, I think, and she enjoyed having older peers.

@__drewface A skill issue or a SKILLS.md issue?

as always, it's a skill issue

The coding tools are such bad backend engineers. They just... build tools in a completely insane way. Why would you ever, ever build a tool like that? ahh

@luusssso I wish they still made these

So interesting to me that society elevated early minimalist designs by Apple to cult-like status when Dieter Rams and Braun were doing it almost 50 years before

@ianfirth @rentbotsTX @amanmsiddiqui None for this purpose but there absolutely will be legit service robots (and probably fake service robot vests)

@rentbotsTX @amanmsiddiqui Give us 1 valid reason a robot should fly with people instead of flying freight.

We just got robots banned from Southwest Airlines. You’re welcome 🫡 Yesterday we flew our humanoid robot Stewie from Las Vegas to Dallas on Southwest — something we (and others) have tried and failed multiple times because batteries are always the issue. This time we cracked it. Custom lithium pack, spec’d just under the legal limit. Stewie boarded, buckled up, and flew like a completely normal passenger. This morning a Southwest employee leaks us the internal training they just pushed to EVERY flight attendant companywide. Mandatory. Urgent. With a photo of Stewie on the plane as the example of what to look out for. We didn’t break a single FAA rule. Not one. They just weren’t ready for us. Robophobic? Arguably. The robots are traveling whether the airlines are ready or not. 🤖✈️

@Liface plackers are the only floss that can fit in my teeth - I'll try this out

I bought this Oral-B floss by mistake and and it's orders of magnitude better than any floss I've used in my life: - it does not fray at all - it's the perfect stiffness - it glides in between tight gaps pleasurably IMMEDIATELY order this floss!!! amzn.to/4woOe5H

@Murytador @Acyn He passed a MOCA (or so he says)

@Acyn People will laugh at how he said it, but the bigger question is valid: why shouldn’t candidates for president pass basic cognitive and health standards ?

Trump says anyone running for president should take a cognitive exam because you could end being stuck with a moron for years. “I mean, you get a guy who gets in there, he's got a good line of crap. He gets in and all of a sudden you're stuck with a man who's a moron”

Which way Massachusetts man?

@Liface Still time to learn VB!

Meanwhile, me in 7th grade

@PalettaAnthony @mcmansionhell Ah dang when did this happen?

The Sert reclad on Roosevelt Island is disastrous

@__drewface AI is blue, this is known

So what's going on with this whole AI stock image aesthetic anyway?