First, I want to wish you all a wonderful 2025! I hope this year brings you growth, joy, and exciting new adventures. The past few months have been a whirlwind of exploration and development, and I'm excited to share some thoughts and updates with you.

Memory for AI

I've been diving deep into the intersection of neuroscience and AI, working on a biologically-inspired memory system. It's fascinating how mimicking human cognitive processes can lead to more natural and consistent AI behavior.

The project started as a thought exercise but evolved into something more substantial, exploring everything from creating personalities and memory for AI agents. If you're curious about the technical details, I've written an extensive piece about it on my blog.

The art of being human in an AI age

Working with AI memory systems has opened up fascinating new perspectives on creativity. What started as research into how machines might remember evolved into deeper questions about human imagination. As I watch AI master more creative domains - generating art, composing music, writing code - I'm seeing a fundamental shift in how we create and innovate.

Here's what's become clear: While AI excels at generating content, human creativity operates on a different level entirely. When we create, we're processing lived experiences, connecting disparate ideas, and finding meaning in unexpected places. Our creative process isn't just about the output - it's about discovery, understanding, and growth.

As AI handle more creative tasks, they're not replacing human creativity - they're transforming how we create. We're moving beyond traditional constraints, using AI as a powerful tool for exploration and expression while retaining what makes our creativity uniquely human: the ability to find meaning in the process itself. I'm excited to see how your own creative processes evolve in this new landscape.

Research app update

Remember Research, the AI-powered paper analysis tool I launched last summer? We’ve had thousands of people use it in the last few months and the response has been incredible, and we've been iterating on feedback. If you haven't tried it yet, you can still check it out at un.ms/research.

As we move through 2025, I'm excited about new projects on the horizon. The work on AI memory systems has opened up interesting possibilities, particularly in interactive experiences. Stay tuned for more updates on that front.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences. What's been capturing your imagination lately?

Until next time, Udara

P.S. For those interested in my technical work, I've been documenting more of my work on YouTube. Feel free to check out the channel for behind-the-scenes looks at my projects.

I hope this newsletter finds you well. It's been an eventful time, and I'm excited to share some updates with you, including a new app launch!

New app: I'm thrilled to announce Research! It's designed to help you read and understand research papers with the assistance of AI. Whether you're a analyst, academic, or just curious about scientific literature, Research aims to make the process more accessible and efficient. You can learn more and try the app for free at un.ms/research.

Recent writing:

1. Design Engineering: I dive into my approach of integrating design and programming in software development. If you're curious about how I view the craft of making software, this one's for you. [Full post]

2. Bioinformatics: An exploration of the fascinating world of bioinformatics, from its history to current breakthroughs. I also share why this field continues to captivate me. [Full post]

3. I've also recently updated my post on my Homelab setup. In this piece, I detail my current home server configuration, including a portable 12U rack that houses my networking equipment and servers. I discuss my networking setup, which provides a secure and flexible environment for my work and experiments.

   

   For those interested in building their own homelab or curious about the behind-the-scenes of my digital workspace, this post offers a comprehensive look at my setup and the thinking behind it. It's a living document that I update as my setup evolves, reflecting my ongoing journey in creating a personalized, powerful computing environment. [Read more]

4. I also started making Youtube videos earlier this year. Here’s the first one about my app, Pile.

They're part of my ongoing effort to document my thoughts and experiences, and I hope they provide some value or spark some interesting ideas for you.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new app or any of these topics. Your feedback and perspectives are always appreciated.

Until next time, keep curiosity alive!

Udara

This edition covers everything I have been interested in over the last year: Gene editing, AI, web design, and a little hardware development.

We'll discuss the potential of CRISPR gene editing, collaborating with AI, building a live stream for my website, and exploring the world of phyllotactic patterns. I'll also discuss the importance of thinking in first principles and looking at what it takes to step into the world of hardware development.

→ CRISPR Gene editing
→ Collaborating with AI
→ Building a live stream for my website
→ Phyllotactic Patterns
→ Ideas and first principles
→ Stepping into hardware development

CRISPR gene editing

CRISPR gene editing is a method of altering the DNA of a cell. It is a relatively new technology that has revolutionized the field of genetics, allowing scientists to make precise changes to an organism's DNA.

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPR for short is the name given to a family of DNA sequences that play a key role in the anti-viral defence system of prokaryotic organisms like bacteria. They are signatures that allow bacteria to identify and remember specific viruses to develop immunity.

This technology uses a particular enzyme called Cas-9, which acts like a pair of "molecular scissors" that can cut DNA at specific locations. By providing the Cas-9 enzyme with a short piece of RNA called a guide RNA, researchers can target a particular region of DNA to cut. Once the DNA is cut, the cell's natural repair mechanisms can be used to insert or delete specific genetic sequences, effectively making changes to the organism's genetic code.

Our understanding of CRISPR allows us to create programmable gene editing tools that are used to develop everything from phage-resistant bacterial strains used in yogurt production to genetic vaccines for COVID-19.

The general idea is that whenever bacteria come under attack by a virus, they fight back by copying and incorporating small fragments of the virus's DNA into their genome. These identifiers are then used to disrupt viruses and provide immunity against future attacks.

CRISPR sequences were discovered in the early 1980s by three independent research groups. They were studying genes belonging to Escherichia coli, a type of bacterium that is commonly found in the human gut. These researchers noticed that CRISPR sequences were present in the genes of these bacteria, and that they seemed to have a unique pattern.

Following this discovery, researchers started seeing this pattern in all sorts of microbial genes. By the 2000s, it was also known that CRISPR sequences were always accompanied by another set of genes that came to be known as Cas genes (short for CRISPR-associated genes). These Cas genes encoded enzymes that cut DNA, which play an important role in the CRISPR system. Many different Cas genes have since been identified, and they’re usually named along the line of Cas-9, Cas-13 etc.)

It was only in 2005 that we learned that the spacer sequences found within the CRIPSR system were similar to virus DNA, and the idea that this might be part of a dynamic viral defence system in bacteria began to spread.

This technology was first applied commercially by Danisco in 2008, a danish bio-based company in food manufacturing that used it to improve the immunity of bacterial cultures against viruses.

The applications are many and varied, from transgenics, where DNA is transferred from one organism to another, to growing human organs in hosts such as pigs. We could even edit out disease-causing mutations and create hardier plants, biofuels and many other applications in industrial biotechnology.

We can now engineer organisms using these molecular scissors to cut and splice genetic material. Because of this, we no longer need to wait for generations to affect significant genetic change. For example, researchers have genetically engineered livestock to create resistance to common diseases (including COVID-19). In one case, a bull calf was genetically altered to have a 75% chance of producing males in future offspring.

Interesting reading adjacent to this topic:
Timeline of key events
The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson (book)
The Secrets of Covid ‘Brain Fog’ Are Starting to Lift

DIY CRISPR gene editing?
All you need is a bacterial culture to work with and some equipment. You can purchase a handy kit that has everything you need on Odin, a store for all your biohacking needs.

Collaborating with AI

In my last email, I talked about using the GPT-3 API. I used it to build a writing tool that used the language model to complete and extend ideas as you typed. As you can see on the example below, some of the prompts are certainly thought provoking.

You type on the left side, and different results from GPT-3 show up on the right. You can use your arrow keys to select a suggestion and hit the tab to insert it.

At the time I made this, ChatGPT, a tool that uses GPT-3 to generate text suggestions in real-time wasn’t yet available but would be what I’d recommend you try out today.

As language models like GPT become more advanced and more widely used, they can help people in a variety of ways. For example, they can assist with research by providing access to vast amounts of information and by making it easier to find and organize relevant information.

Models available today have high-error rates and aren’t always accurate. So it’s generally not a great idea to trust any of these models verbatim.

They can however be great at helping with writing and editing by suggesting alternative phrases or sentences that can improve the clarity and coherence of most kinds of writing. They can even help with creative tasks by providing inspiration and ideas, or by offering suggestions for ways to combine or extend existing ideas.

I like to think of them as partners in thinking, that allow us to tap into large collections of knowledge in a contextual manner.

A couple of other models that I found interesting:

Bloom: The world’s largest multilingual language model

Unlike language models like GPT-3 that function as black boxes hidden behind APIs, Bloom is open source. The project took over a year to complete with over 1000 AI researchers, the largest collaboration of this nature.

Try it at: huggingface.co/bigscience/bloom

DALL·E mini

An attempt at replicating OpenAI's DALL·E that’s actually pretty good. Although DALLE•E 2 outperforms this in general, it’s to be expected given that this is a simplification of the original model that has the benefit of being able to be trained on less demanding hardware.

Try it at: https://huggingface.co/flax-community/dalle-mini

I wrote this bit a couple months ago and to be honest it’s already outdated. This space is moving so fast.

Building a live stream for my website

I wanted a way to capture some real-time data, get it over to a server in a secure fashion and figure out how to present it with some consideration for latency and bandwidth.

Here're some notes on how I added a live video stream from my workspace onto my personal website.

My current approach is to recreate a live feed using a sequence of images and transition between them to recreate the video-like effect. Serving images from a server is less complicated than setting up a video stream. Additionally, I could host at least a couple thousand live viewers off a small server (2 vcpus, 2 gigs of memory).

Serving images that are ~20-30kb in size each at a frame rate of 30 frames per minute makes up about ~1Mb per minute in bandwidth. For reference, a video stream of roughly the same quality but at a much higher frame-rate only costs about ~2Mb per minute. Definitely room for improvement. For a future upgrade, I'm hoping to take a page out of video compression algorithms and see how far I can compress these individual frames or if there is a way for me to send diffs instead of full images.

It caught me by surprise how many folks were interested in this when I shared it on Reddit. You don't often have people sharing a casual stream outside of the context of places like Twitch or Youtube. In hindsight, I should've added a wave button so visitors could interact with the feed and say Hi.

Keep reading for more details on my blog → udara.io/live-video-feed

Phyllotactic Patterns

Everything has a purpose when you look at a plant, the shape of the leaves, the petals, the thorns on the stem, and the way it grows.

The way the branches grow on a tree, the way the leaves grow on a stem, and the designs that some flowers form, can all be classified into a distinctive class of patterns known as phyllotaxis.

A spiral phyllotactic pattern inspired the design above. It was programmatically generated using D3. You can see it live and play with the code at https://replit.com/@devudara/Phyllotaxis.

In the case of the spiral pattern above, the number of left and right spirals that are successive Fibonacci numbers is notable because it demonstrates the appearance of the Fibonacci sequence in this specific pattern. In the example given, 34 spirals go to one side and 55 to the other, which are both numbers in the Fibonacci sequence (34 is the 12th number in the sequence and 55 is the 13th). This suggests that the arrangement of the spirals in the pattern follows the principles of the Fibonacci sequence.

The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. The sequence typically starts with 0 and 1, and then the next number is the sum of 0 and 1 (which is 1), followed by 1 and 1 (which is 2), and so on. This sequence appears in various forms in nature, including in the arrangement of leaves on a stem, the branching of trees, and the arrangement of scales on a pinecone.

The pattern of interconnecting spirals that emerges from a simple set of rules is harmonious. This pattern also produces the most efficient packing of seeds mathematically possible within the flower head in plants such as sunflowers.

The simplicity of nature is only overshadowed by its complexity.

Ideas and first principles

Often, fresh ideas start as opinions.

They're based on an intuition or gut feeling. Ideas are the lifeblood of startups; they're what make them tick. They're what makes them move. They're what makes them grow.

But ideas are also the things that cause startups to fail.

When you're trying to build something new, it can be helpful to boil your ideas down to first principles to cut through assumptions and clarify your thinking. It helps us better understand the problems we're dealing with, and in effect helps us pick and improve the right ideas.

Testing your ideas is also important.

Building prototypes, finding ways to get meaningful feedback, and then being able to iterate on them quickly helps us put just the right ideas together. It allows us to refine ideas and ensure that they align with the needs and wants of real people.

Good ideas are essential for the success of a startup.

However, it is important to carefully evaluate and test ideas to ensure that they are feasible and practical. This process of moving between idea generation and testing is what fuels the growth and development of any successful venture.

Meow Wolf

I had the opportunity to see the Convergence Station exhibit by Meow Wolf, it’s a four-story, immersive exhibit that brings to life four alien worlds. The sheer scale and creativity of the installations are breathtaking, you could spend a whole day walking around and you’d still miss things.

Stepping into hardware development

This year I set up a 3D printer and dived into the world of designing and printing physical objects. So naturally, it was only a matter of time before I wanted to make something blink.

If you've ever asked yourself what a modern workflow for building IoT products from concept to design, code and hardware looks like, you'll find more than a couple of your questions answered here.

For many years I've relied on Raspberry Pi hardware as my platform of choice for prototyping. But, my friend Pankaja, who's been building hardware for almost ten years now, introduced me to some better tools and hardware to modernize my workflow.

Here I use a ESP32 microcontroller driving a Neo-pixel ring of LEDs inside a 3D printed enclosure to play around with a quick hardware prototype. This post isn't a tutorial, you can find hundreds of those elsewhere online, but a brief outline of the new tools and software I picked up.

If you’re interested in the details, you can find them on my website at: udara.io/hardware-development

I’d love to hear your responses as replies to this email or on twitter at @devudara.

– That's all for this time!

→ Introduction: Humans will always do more than survive
→ The uncomfortably natural journey of growth
→ Exploring ideas with GPT-3
→ Why you should stop using the word 'interesting'
→ Speaking of Futureland
→ From the archive
→ Inspiration 🔗
→ Memes 🐸

Humans will always do more than survive

Though our lives are different, the time period in which we live, the technological age, is one of those landmark periods that will become a part of the history of humankind. Each of us might only live through a few of these breakthrough moments, but we all share the journey toward discovery and meaning.

The future is to be full of technological advances we can only dream of today. We’re to colonize other planets and build robots that act like people, as well as create virtual realities and harvest unlimited energy. As far as I know, I’m not going to live long enough to see what life is like on a planet other than Earth, or maybe I will, it all depends on whether or not we discover anything in space—and how soon we get there—but I’d never say thinking about these things or trying to achieve any of it is a waste of our time.

The inner spirit that drives us might be a mystery to even to us, but it’s the very definition of what makes us human. The sun might someday explode and kill us all, but until then, we build things, discover new places, create and communicate—we put on costumes and sing, dance and play. We do more than just survive, we discover what life has to offer along the way.

Looking at life from a distance, it's hard not to smile.

The uncomfortably natural journey of growth

You chose growth because you want to expand beyond your current capabilities. It’s easy to settle for what you already have, but you’re forcing yourself to grow whether you like it or not.

If you're on this journey, it's because you want more than what you have now. That's why you have all these questions, and why you're forcing yourself to grow. It doesn't have to be comfortable - but that's okay because you've already decided that more is worth it.

When you're trying to grow, you have to try a bunch of different things. It's like a pendulum—you swing from what you are now to what you want to be.

At first, everything feels uncomfortable because it’s not natural yet—you’re still not used to operating that way. You have to think about it actively and you keep swinging back and forth. But don’t worry, that feeling goes away once you get used to it. And by the time you do, the pendulum will naturally settle in the middle and it’ll be much easier for you to pull from both sides of who you are—the current you and the past you. Just give it time and appreciate the progress you make along the way.

We force ourselves to feel disordered so we can learn that there are better ways of living. There may be an inherent chaos to this process, but if you look closely enough, you can see that it’s also remarkably beautiful and worth preserving.

Exploring ideas with GPT-3

While it's not perfect, I've been struck by the connections GPT-3 draws between words and ideas in almost every domain. It’s a new way to have a conversation of sorts with a computer, and get a peek into how an AI understands patterns in the world.

When I asked GPT-3 (Q&A preset) to explain ‘unorthodoxed design’ here’re some of its responses:

Design is fundamentally about creating ideas that innovate in the spirit of wild dreams.

It's usually smarter to start with the obvious idea and then work your way around to something new and uncommon.

I highly recommend trying out the @openai playground, it's free, publicly available now, and easy to play with. You can get free access at: openai.com/api

I ran the top half of my essay, Humans will always do more than survive, through GPT-3 and tried to get it to write me an alternate conclusion; here’s what I got.

🤖: We have a tendency to overcomplicate things, but the truth is that dance, music, art and theater are all ways for us to escape from reality, and enjoy ourselves in the process. I hope that people never become so advanced or obsessed with their advancements that they forget why they got here in the first place...so we can all go out and dance until the sun comes up.

One other paragraph in this newsletter (outside this section) was written by GPT-3, can you guess which?

Leave a comment

Why you should stop using the word 'interesting'

It's a diplomatic word, used when there's no other word available. A substitute for thinking. It means nothing. Because the word 'interesting' doesn't say anything about what's interesting. It's the verbal equivalent to a shoulder shrug, and it usually means either that a speaker doesn't have anything substantive to say, or that they just aren't saying anything at all. Why are you 'interested' in something? Does it mean that you want to know more? Or does it mean that you already know what's going on, but you think it might be fun to look at anyway?

In place of the word ‘interesting’, say why you think it is interesting instead.

Speaking of Futureland

I want to share the various tools, mental models and ideas I come across that are valuable in some way. Sometimes these could get a little nerdy, but I mean well.

Futureland has been one of the most delightful pieces of software & community combinations I’ve come across this year. It's quickly become one of my favourite apps. Try for yourself at futureland.tv.

→ Look to this journal to learn more: vin/Welcome

From the archive

An excerpt from Polymath Letters - 05/07/2020

Even when the human is about to die, his illusions, mind, hopes, and opinions don't die.

One patient was afraid of the pain to come, and one patient was happy remembering his good old times -- both are entangled in the games of the mind. Even in the last moments of our life, the mind doesn't let us just live; it keeps us busy in its games.

The past and the future, both are not real; they exist only inside your head. The only moment that truly exists is the one you are living right now. In remembering the past and imagining the future, the present moment passes by.

Reading: Good to Great – A management book on transitioning from good to great companies. 1/ Finding your Hedgehog concept and why great companies have one 2/ Put the best people on the biggest opportunities, not the biggest problems. 3/ Confront brutal facts head-on.

Watching:

→ How Airlines Quietly Became Banks: Each airline runs its own loyalty program as a separate company, and these programs consistently bring in billions more than the airlines themselves.

⭐️ The Art of Code, a talk by Dylan Beattie: There's the code that makes our banks and hospitals, as well as the code we use to browse the web and create spreadsheets. And then there's code that just exists because somebody wanted to write it. Maybe it solves a problem. Or maybe it doesn't do anything at all, some software comes into being just because somebody wanted to write it and make their friends smile, laugh, or dance.

Format: [title]: [my summary / why it’s interesting]

Memes

Finding the best format for this newsletter is going to take some experimenting. Let me know what you think by replying to this email, I’m always open to feedback or to start a conversation about anything I’ve covered.

As always, I hope you’re doing well. Thanks for reading ✌️

– Udara (@devUdara)

It’s been a while since my last newsletter.

Life got very busy with my startup two years ago and I put a pause on my newsletter for a long time. But I’m ready to get started again and have patiently collected hundreds of ideas, inspiration, and projects to share with you.

As always my newsletter will focus on learning, technology, design and building new things.

Thanks for reading, and if you’ve chosen to hear from me again, I hope to write to you (at most) once or twice a month.

If there’s something I can help you with, you can reach me at me@udara.io or @devUdara on Twitter. I’m always open to a conversation, or helping you out with your projects any way I can!

I hope you’re doing well, and thanks again! ✌️

– Udara