Books I’m Reading
Andrew Jackson (“Old Hickory”) was a tough cookie. Despite a busted shoulder that caused intense pain, nearly constant diarhea, and many disappointing logistics challenges around supplying his army, he remained optimistic and forged ahead.
I’ve tried to place myself in the shoes of the Tennesseans he led into battle against the Red Sticks in the Creek War. I can’t imagine the anger and rage a massacre like Fort Mims would’ve brought on me, especially if my family was directly impacted.
Then again, the Red Stick warriers were dealing with the constant encroachment of white settlers into lands their families had lived on and hunted for generations. Despite written agreements with the U.S. Federal Government, settlers continued moving in, displacing the Native Americans and, even worse, introducing whiskey into their trade lines. Many Indians become enslaved by the alcohol and it completely wrecked significant parts of their society. If I’d been in their shoes, I would’ve fought back too.
War is never simple.
Podcast I’m Listening To
Here’s a worthwhile interview with one of the fathers of reinforcement learning (central tenet of LLMs), and 2024 recipient of the Turing Award, Richard Sutton:
.@RichardSSutton, father of reinforcement learning, doesn’t think LLMs are bitter-lesson-pilled.
— Dwarkesh Patel (@dwarkesh_sp) September 26, 2025
My steel man of Richard’s position: we need some new architecture to enable continual (on-the-job) learning.
And if we have continual learning, we don't need a special training… pic.twitter.com/gIWqBUTyjK
On Bitcoin
The Smarter Web Company, which trades on the UK’s Aquis Exchange, IPO’d in April of this year.
Since then, they’ve raised over £200 million while the all other companies on the London Stock Exchange have only raised £189 million:
This is the power of a Bitcoin treasury strategy. Absolutely remarkable.
“No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come”
― Victor Hugo
Tweets I’m Reading
Must read by @VivekGRamaswamy — Letters: How Workers Can Build Wealth in the AI Era https://t.co/xv80FlMKjR
— Charles Gasparino (@CGasparino) September 29, 2025
— nic carter (@nic__carter) October 1, 2025
.@SecWar Pete Hegseth FULL REMARKS at the WAR DEPARTMENT ADDRESS: pic.twitter.com/dbvmQg3FT6
— Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) September 30, 2025
James Nestor, bestselling author of "Breath," on ADHD and sleep disorders in kids. pic.twitter.com/LctNO27JHi
— Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) October 1, 2025
Organizations that can't measure performance end up measuring performativeness instead.
— Paul Graham (@paulg) October 2, 2025
If you have feedback for me, if something resonates and you want to see more of it, reply in the comments below. You can also tweet at me on Twitter @the_cody_hall.
I look forward to hearing from you!
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