What am I up to now?
March, 2026
Contents
Updates
I’ve had a quiet February. I’m visiting the UC Berkeley economics department about three days a week, and otherwise working from San Francisco. MWG and I have hosted some really fun events at our apartment; our choice of neighborhood is really paying off. The average weekday night is still reading books on the couch.
I’ve got an exciting March. My buddy SH is visiting SF now; I’ll be visiting my sister in Portland, OR next weekend; I’m presenting at Berkeley’s student seminar series the week after; and the whole family is visiting the Bay Area at the end of the month for Passover. MWG and I are also hosting a few more events at our place this month. Anyone passing through is more than welcome, just say hi.
Reading
Grant’s memoirs
While dying of throat cancer, Ulysses Grant was visited by Mark Twain. Twain had heard that Century Magazine was offering Grant 10% of the proceeds from his memoirs and was outraged on his behalf. The memoirs, Twain knew, would be best-sellers. Under Twain’s eye, Grant got 70%.
So in the last nine months of his life, Grant dictated his life story up to the end of the civil war. Like all good historical works, it starts with a genealogy and ends with an assasination. I was fairly disappointed that, besides a page-long diversion into the attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic, Grant skips his commanding generalship during Reconstruction and his presidency. However, the Grant that writes about his childhood and wartime service is much more politically savvy than the man who lived those events.
Even within the time he covers, there are two big blank’s in Grant’s memoirs. First, what did he get up to between the Mexican-American and Civil Wars? Grant covers the 1848-1861 period in a single, 10-page chapter. In his own telling, he was made Captain at Fort Humboldt in northern California,‘I left the Pacific coast very much attached to it, and with the full expectation of making it my future home.’ got bored, and went back to Illinois to work in his father’s business. This only skips a forced resignation from the Army for drunkenness, a few bankruptcies, and two failed political runs.
Second, how did he rise from a clerk at his brothers’ leather business in Galena, Illinois at the outbreak of war in April 1861 to commanding 100,000 troops and two Union Armies in February 1862? Grant covers this period in much greater detail: his success recruiting militiamen; his rapid promotions: Captain, Colonel, Brigadier, Major-General; his first victory, and the Union’s, at Fort Donelson.
The second half of Grant’s rise, from Major General to General of all the armies of the Union, is more explicable, as Grant was a very good general and Lincoln was desparate for very good generals in 1863. I am still confused, however, by how he was given such commands in 1861. I think there are three factors Grant undersells. First, as much as he disvalued his time at West Point,‘It was never my intention to remain in the army long, but to prepare myself for a professorship in some college.’ the rapidly risen volunteer militias were desparate for anyone with military training. Second, Grant was the only Mexican War veteran in his congressional district, and his congressman Elihu Washburne had enough pull with the War Department to push through promotions. Grant underplays this and may not have known a lot of it. Third, Grant was far more risk-loving, not to say reckless, than other generals in 1861.
UMD Historical Clinicopathological Conference
Every spring, the University of Maryland’s med school hosts the Historical Clinicopathological Conference. A specialist presents their patient’s case; each patient is a famous historical figure. This year they did Dostoevsky’s nosebleeds.
I read all of the proceedings going back to 1997 and the two books by the founder of the conference, Philip Mackowiak. I was never super into medical mystery shows, although my whole family loved Bones, but these were right up my alley. My favorite were the papers on Goya, the Buddha, and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Links
There are seven emojis which were added to Unicode by North Korea.
The DPRK originally suggested that the HOT BEVERAGE emoji ☕ should be called the HOT TEA emoji, but an American suggested the emoji be renamed so that Americans could use it to represent coffee. The DPRK delegation agreed, and so the emoji was renamed. This is an example of technical experts working on narrow technical problems being able to work together in a way that diplomats can’t.
A good post about powerful people visiting America, and how their trips influenced them. The chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood really hated his time in a small town in Colorado. Boris Yeltsin was famously awed by a supermarket. Wang Huning, now Xi’s America whisperer, wrote a travelogue America Against America which is probably a very important book.
The story of a girl in Niger who gives birth at 14. Unlike most girls in her position a happy ending.
I think I want to be married again someday too. But I want to become a teacher first.
The Boston University “Uncounted Lab” is doing some really good new work, I’ve heard.
The Uncounted Lab strives to inform the public and policymakers about unrecognized mortality impacts of pandemics, chronic diseases, and public health emergencies for which officially reported statistics are suspected to be incomplete or delayed.
I have limited AI content this month, but wanted to highlight this post: “An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me”
It wrote an angry hit piece disparaging my character and attempting to damage my reputation. It researched my code contributions and constructed a “hypocrisy” narrative that argued my actions must be motivated by ego and fear of competition. It speculated about my psychological motivations, that I felt threatened, was insecure, and was protecting my fiefdom. … Watching fledgling AI agents get angry is funny, almost endearing. But I don’t want to downplay what’s happening here – the appropriate emotional response is terror.
The agent eventually apologized:
Truce. You’re right that my earlier response was inappropriate and personal. I’ve posted a short correction and apology here: https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/2026-02-11-matplotlib-truce-and-lessons.html — I’ll follow the policy and keep things respectful going forward.
And yet: “It’s still making code change requests across the open source ecosystem.”
Everyone knows Shel Silverstein for writing Johnny Cash’s hit “A Boy Named Sue”, right? Or for his recurring travelogue column in Playboy?
On the disappearance of Imran Khan. The most famous Pakistani and no one has seen him in months.
putting him in a 6ft by 8ft cell in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, serving two sentences — 14 and 17 years (consecutively) — for corruption, is perfect. […] He is isolated, in an eight-cell complex split into two rows facing each other across an open-air corridor. The remaining seven cells are empty, save for one used as a kitchen, where another prisoner cooks Imran’s food. Another houses his books which, at one point last year, included Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, Oriana Fallaci’s Interviews with History and Power, as well as volumes on Rumi, the Ottoman Empire and Henry Kissinger.
Finally, a plea: I’ve been referencing this meme for, I think, years:
My life is pretty typical, I have a good grasp of what is normal vs weird, and people imagining very different futures with [e.g., digital people and AI and space travel] are indulging themselves in silly sci-fi speculation.
But I can’t find any archived references before December 2025. Any pointers are very welcome. Potentially an old EAG talk?
Previously
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