It looks like the bricks-and-mortar Microsoft library in Redmond is closing https://www.geekwire.com/2026/microsoft-campus-library-closes-in-broader-shift-to-ai-powered-digital-learning-experiences/. I fondly mentioned this building in posts like https://vzimmer.blogspot.com/2025/03/33-years-in-panopticon-books-et-al.html.
Meanwhile in downtown Seattle I discovered https://www.spl.org/
So why am I in downtown Seattle these days? Well, it's proximate to the Anduril https://www.anduril.com/ local office https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/10/anduril-cnbc-disruptor-50.html
on the Seattle waterfront where I work.
To me Anduril Industries (AI) is sort of the convergence of many themes of cybernetics, a topic I mentioned earlier in https://vzimmer.blogspot.com/2012/10/did-book-inspire-your-choice-of.html. This includes Wiener's innovations in control theory and math that led to things like automated anti-aircraft https://www.columbia.edu/~jrh29/licklider/lick-wiener.html.
Working with modern AI systems reminds me of a quote I heard from a Nvidia scientist in podcast where she mentioned that today's AI is really 'applied signal processing.' This appeals to both the EE in me with signal processing, real analysis, hardware, etc, and the CS part of me with system software, logic, and security.
Also Norbert W. did logic at beginning and then the plumbing around control theory and signal processing later. So perhaps that's an arc, too?
I say 'full circle' in the blog title, though, to reflect my professional journey. My first post undergraduate job was at Daniel Industries where I worked on embedded firmware for flow computers that had various themes of safety, embedded, values, signal processing, sensor fusion - building robots to control and monitor gas flow. And now to Anduril to go fully into autonomous robots for sea, land, air and space.
Interesting times.
