2025-08-23

The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut

first book i picked up after a long break. heard about this 2023 novel from lex fridman's podcast episode #475 with demis hassabis.

  • didn’t really know who von neumann was and how great his achievements were; only heard about neumann's architecture without knowing what it is.

  • enjoyed parts with demis hassabis, lee sedol vs alphago.

  • lee sedol's name, strong stone in korean, is not coincident

    father: 5 dan (amateur)
     
    brother1: 9 dan (professional)
    brother2: 5 dan (amateur)
    sister1: 2 dan (amateur)
    sister2: 6 dan (amateur)
    lee sedol: 9 dan (professional)
     
    total: 36 dan

somewhat disturbed this book is a work of fiction based on facts as i don't know which parts of the book are fictional.