You don't need a PhD to enjoy learning about quantum computing. This is the proof. Johannes Pollanen, CTO of EeroQ, thinks on paper about quantum computing, electron spin qubits, and scaling the future of quantum technology.

EeroQ has its chips made in commercial semiconductor foundries, coats them in a thin layer of superfluid helium, and floats single electrons about 10 nanometres above the surface.

Without a PhD, you'll learn:

• Why quantum computers already exist, and why they aren't the machines we need yet
• Superconducting circuits, trapped ions, neutral atoms, silicon spins, photons and electrons on helium
• Why helium never freezes, and why Johannes calls it "the cleanest system" for electron qubits
• Why wiring together lots of dilution refrigerators sounds hard to a low-temperature physicist
• What nature's identical particles teach engineers

Please enjoy the show.

📚 EeroQ: https://www.eeroq.com/
🌐 Thinking On Paper: https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz
📷 Instagram: toptechpodcast
🎧 Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/Veyc5Vf6sSI
🍎 Listen on Apple Podcasts: Apple Podcasts

Chapters

(00:00) Quantum computing at a wedding
(03:57) Reverse engineering quantum computing
(05:15) Quality or quantity of qubits
(06:23) The modalities of quantum computing
(12:36) You'll need liquid helium
(19:01) Transistors and silicon
(20:21) Is that thing behind you using helium-3?
(26:15) How do you cool quantum systems?
(31:08) How do you make more qubits?
(35:15) How do you do a computation on a qubit?
(40:05) Faster quantum computers
(43:45) Can IBM make a useful quantum computer?
(46:00) The quantum lessons of nature
(48:33) Carry over question

#quantumcomputing #quantumphysics #technologynews

Bruce Lee’s cultural legacy shapes modern world culture like few others. Alongside icons like Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali, his legend continues to influence action cinema, hip-hop, and martial arts philosophy.

In Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America, celebrated cultural biographer Jeff Chang joins Thinking On Paper to explore kung fu, mindset, Asian American empowerment, and the pop-culture history behind the man.

In the second half of the show, we shift to artificial intelligence, music sampling, and the creative act. How does Jeff Chang view generative AI? What does his close friend, legendary hip-hop producer DJ Shadow, think about AI tools, sampling ethics, and machine-made music? (Spoiler: Shadow tried AI, and he thinks it's corny).

How do you explain Bruce Lee to a generation raised on John Wick and The Matrix? Chang starts simply: "He’s the guy who made all of that possible."

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How Bruce Lee evolved from a war baby in occupied Hong Kong and child star to cha-cha champion and Hollywood pioneer
• His struggle with racism in Seattle, his role as Kato in The Green Hornet, and the famous letter he wrote promising himself $10M and global fame
• The cinematic evolution between The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, and Enter the Dragon
• The deeper meaning behind "Be Water" and the title Water Mirror Echo
• How DJ Shadow and Jeff Chang view AI, sampling culture, and the legacy of Endtroducing
• Autonomous media, machine creativity, and whether humans can truly love art created by an algorithm

Please enjoy the show.

Links & Resources
📚 Jeff Chang’s books & bio: jeffchang.net
📷 Jeff Chang on Instagram: @zentronix
🖊️ Read Jeff's Substack: zentronix.substack.com

Connect with Thinking on Paper
🌐 Website & Show Notes: thinkingonpaper.xyz
📷 Instagram: @toptechpodcast
🎧 Spotify: Listen on Spotify
🍎 Apple Podcasts: Listen on Apple Podcasts

Chapters

(00:00) Bruce Lee, AI, and the First Draft
(02:06) Who Was Bruce Lee? Defining a Legend
(05:15) How Bruce Lee Made Zen Pop Culture
(10:05) The Letter to Himself and Napoleon Hill's Mindset
(15:33) Wartime Hong Kong & Martial Arts Origins
(18:37) Seattle, Early Racism, and Cha-Cha Champion
(21:19) The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, and Enter the Dragon
(28:17) Be Water: Bruce Lee's Philosophy & Real Fighting
(32:21) Water, Mirror, Echo: Meaning Behind the Book Title
(34:25) Does Jeff Chang Use AI?
(40:24) DJ Shadow on AI, Sampling, and Endtroducing
(48:26) Generative Art: Could You Love Machine-Made Music?
(54:28) Single-Mindedness and Bruce Lee's Final Legacy

#brucelee #jeffchang #djshadow #ai #generativeai #watermirrorecho #asianamericanhistory #hiphopculture #thinkingonpaper

What would a gamer do with a quantum computer? Or a musician? Harry Kumar, co-founder of Moth Quantum, argues that quantum computing needs creativity and art to push the industry forward, so we’re going to find out.

Moth built Quantum Backrooms, a video game where a quantum computer builds the maze. Each tile on the map is a qubit, and the correlation between two neighbouring qubits decides whether a wall stands between them.

The game shows no quantum advantage and runs no faster than a classical computer. It certainly isn’t GTA 6. So why build it?

Look at early AI: image generation was no better than a child’s drawing, yet millions signed up. That is the step before commercial value. People are creative and want creative tools. While using quantum mechanics for material science and protein folding is incredible, it doesn’t bring in the masses—which is why Harry is waiting for quantum computing's "Dylan-goes-electric" moment.

In this episode of Thinking On Paper, we cover:

• How Atlas, Moth's platform, lets you run images through a quantum computer without writing code
• Whether a musician could hear the difference between quantum and classical randomness
• Quantum shaders, artistic expression, and potential in music and visual effects
• Why Richard Feynman's idea of a computer that works like nature excites artists
• The intersection of quantum computing, AI, and autonomous media

Please enjoy the show.

Links & Resources
• Try Atlas: platform.mothquantum.com
• Moth Quantum: mothquantum.com
• More quantum episodes: Watch on YouTube

Thinking on Paper is a long-form interview podcast with Mark Fielding and Jeremy Gilbertson exploring the human story of technology, AI, quantum computing, and science.

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction to the episode and guests
(01:32) Who is Harry Kumar and what is Moth Quantum?
(04:18) The concept behind Quantum Backrooms and its inspiration
(06:06) The end state in quantum game mechanics and creative mapping
(09:58) Quantum advantage and hardware considerations
(10:31) Using games to explore quantum mechanics
(12:52) Target audience for quantum creative platforms
(17:02) Comparison to Unreal Engine and platform versatility
(20:33) Quantum shaders and potential in music and visual effects
(28:27) Quantum as a new form of artistic expression
(36:04) Quantum computing and the nature of creativity
(44:52) Autonomous media and AI in creative processes
(45:48) How to access and experiment with Moth Quantum's platform

Connect with Thinking on Paper
◼ Choose your own technology adventure: https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz
◼ Running a tech conference? Book us to host: Conference Hosting
◼ Listen on Apple Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
◼ Follow Mark: LinkedIn
◼ Follow Jeremy: LinkedIn

#quantumcomputing #quantumgames #mothquantum #quantumphysics #creativeai #technology #podcast

Data centers use water to cool air, not chips. The water chills the air that gets blown across the racks, and that is where it evaporates. Remove the air and you remove most of the water.

Simon Jesenko runs Iceotope, which builds cooling with no fans and no air at all. Fifteen to twenty litres of refined oil circulating inside a sealed chassis, touching every component. His point about the headlines: they describe air-cooled facilities, and the industry is moving off them. Once a site runs fully liquid-cooled, he says consumption drops immensely.

He explains:

- Why direct-to-chip cooling only solves 80 percent of the problem, and what stays hot

- What the dielectric liquid actually is, where it comes from, and why Shell and Exxon make it

- Why early liquid cooling installs leaked, and what that did to the industry's appetite for risk

- Why the power supply unit, not the GPU, is where his technology wins

- Why crypto miners proved immersion cooling years before data centers

Please enjoy the show.

--

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction to data center cooling challenges

(01:07) Water usage in data centers compared to agriculture and other industries

(03:00) Basics of open loop and closed loop cooling systems

(04:18) Guest introduction: Simon Jesenko of Isotope

(05:02) Misconceptions about data center cooling technology

(06:08) Evolution from air cooling to liquid cooling in data centers

(07:31) Direct-to-chip cooling technology explained

(08:40) Water consumption in traditional vs modern data centers

(10:29) Market transition towards fully liquid cooled data centers

(12:23) Airflow management and chip-level cooling techniques

(13:34) Environmental factors influencing data center placement

(15:50) Challenges of integrating liquid cooling into existing hardware

(19:02) Future-proofing with system-level liquid cooling

(22:02) Immersion cooling history and applications in crypto mining

(23:25) What is dielectric liquid and its environmental impact

(26:50) Adoption and market opportunities for Isotope’s technology

(30:56) Optimizing power distribution with liquid cooling

(34:15) Industry trends and next steps in liquid cooling technology

(37:24) Capacities and limits of current cooling technologies

(40:26) Guest question: How has AI replaced daily activities?

--

Learn more about Iceotope: https://www.iceotope.com/

Thinking on Paper:

◼ Choose your own technology adventure: https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz

◼ Running a tech conference? Book us to host: https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz/tech-conference-host-moderators/

◼ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/00volKqMsQntToeho35W47

◼ Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-on-paper-technology-considered/id1713227258

◼ Follow Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markfielding99/

◼ Follow Jeremy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/

Nathan Silvernail quit SpaceX to make wood from grass.

Building the first part of a rocket SpaceX ever reused - the nose cone - wasn’t enough. After a decade working for Elon Musk, he quit.

Took everything he had learnt.

And started Plantd.

The plan? Make carbon-negative engineered lumber from fast-growing perennial grass. Climate tech meets space tech.

Wood, without trees.

Plantd's panels replace OSB, the oriented strand board that sheathes the floors, walls and roofs of almost every new American home.

In this hotly anticipated episode, Nathan joins Thinking On Paper to talk about his SpaceX journey, why he thinks Mars is a distraction from the work in front of us, how the lumber industry accounts for the wood it burns, and why building a material stronger than steel turned out to be wrong.

You’ll get insight into the nine-month harvest cycle, what it takes to change the culture of an industry without letting it notice, and why he believes the unit economics that let SpaceX displace ULA will do the same to timber.

Please enjoy the show.

Thinking on Paper connects the dots between technology and what it means to be human. New episodes every week.

🏠 ⁠Buy us a beer on Substack⁠

🫵 C⁠hoose your own technology adventure ⁠

📺 ⁠Watch our beautiful faces on YouTube ⁠

🎧 R⁠emember Steve Jobs on APPLE⁠

📺 ⁠Get clips and exclusive videos on Instagram ⁠

--

Chapters

(00:00) Grass building panels that replace wood

(04:10) SpaceX: what the job actually cost him

(07:56) What a payload fairing is and how SpaceX recovers it

(11:52) Lumber: why anger put him in this industry

(24:02) OSB alternative: a drop-in structural panel

(28:00) Carbon negative building materials explained

(29:50) SpaceX and ULA: the same playbook for lumber

(35:55) Why hemp, bamboo and mycelium fail as building materials

(40:14) Harvest: nine months against fifteen years

(46:00) Why the Space Shuttle was retired

We read the National Space Transportation Policy in full. Signed 20 August 2026, it shreds the 2013 directive and rewrites how the US gets into space, moves around up there, and comes back down.

The War Department is all over it. Launch ranges, reentry infrastructure, a clause about accommodating launches within 48 hours of need. You don't build a 48-hour capability to do science. Somebody expects to lose a satellite and need a replacement up fast.

Here's what we think stops it. Not rockets. Not pads. Demand. Most of what goes up is Starlink, everyone else crams onto rideshares, and a target of 1,000 assumes five times more reason to be up there than anyone currently has. The document is a sales pitch with the government as a customer.

We also get into the Mars carve-out and what it says about who America needs, the ISS retiring the same year and China’s plans to land on the moon.

--

Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping your life.

🏠 ⁠Buy us a beer on Substack⁠

🫵 C⁠hoose your own technology adventure ⁠

📺 ⁠Watch our beautiful faces on YouTube ⁠

🎧 R⁠emember Steve Jobs on APPLE⁠

📺 ⁠Get clips and exclusive videos on Instagram ⁠

--

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction to the US Space Transportation Policy

(03:20) US Launches in 2025 and 2026

(04:45) Private Industry and Market Demand

(06:24) International Competition and Collaboration

(07:55) Infrastructure Needs for Increased Launches

(10:00) Government Coordination and Regulatory Frameworks

(12:02) Market Opportunities and Ride-Sharing in Space

(15:13) Future Missions to Mars and Lunar Surface

(18:43) International Efforts and the Race to Mars

(20:48) Implications of the 2030 Space Goals

(23:22) Summary and Next Steps

Why do we stop asking questions as adults? Philosopher Pia Lauritzen has analysed 30,000 of them, and says nothing was ever lost.

The ability stays. What changes is the price. Every question admits you don't know something, and nobody gets promoted for ignorance. Ask in the wrong room and curiosity starts to feel like an interrogation, which is why most of us learn to keep the question to ourselves.

She proves it in keynotes. One minute, two rules, and every person in the audience writes one. They could do it the whole time.

Full episode with Pia Lauritzen on questions, curiosity and whether AI can think at www.thinkingonpaper.xyz

Be curious, stay disruptive.

--

Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping your life.

🏠 ⁠Buy us a beer on Substack⁠

🫵 C⁠hoose your own technology adventure ⁠

📺 ⁠Watch our beautiful faces on YouTube ⁠

🎧 R⁠emember Steve Jobs on APPLE⁠

📺 ⁠Get clips and exclusive videos on Instagram ⁠

Nicholas Ponari says AI music makes live performance more valuable, not less. Mark Fielding calls the same future a hellscape.

Ponari's scenario: by 2045 his son types a script into a generator, gets a feature film in the style of Kubrick crossed with Tarantino, and hits publish.

Everyone becomes a creator in every medium. Nobody can consume a fraction of it, so AI becomes the largest curator in history.

Mark's objection is that shared culture dies with it. No song anyone else has heard. No film anyone else has seen. Nothing left to talk about.

Ponari's answer is scarcity. When everything is generated, the things that cannot be, a room, a crowd, live music, become more valuable than ever.

Who's right?

Full episode at thinkingonpaper.xyz.

Be curious, stay disruptive.

--

Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping your life.

Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping your life.

🏠 ⁠Buy us a beer on Substack⁠

🫵 C⁠hoose your own technology adventure ⁠

📺 ⁠Watch our beautiful faces on YouTube ⁠

🎧 R⁠emember Steve Jobs on APPLE⁠

📺 ⁠Get clips and exclusive videos on Instagram ⁠