August 2025 – TechieTonics

Book Review: The Rigor of Angels by William Egginton

August 15, 2025August 15, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

I’ve always been drawn to the meeting points between literature, science, and philosophy, and to the big ideas that shape how we understand the world. Egginton’s work centers on literature, intellectual history, and the intersections between literature, science, and philosophy. Those are areas I’m drawn to as well, which is probably why I decided to read, The Rigor of Angels. The book, written by William Egginton was first published in 2023.

The ‘Eye of Sauron’: Blazar That Looks Straight at Earth

August 13, 2025August 13, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

A group of scientists from different countries found something that will help explain how a distant and seemingly slow object in space, called PKS 1424+240, can be one of the brightest sources of very energetic light (gamma rays) and tiny particles called neutrinos. Even though it appears to move slowly, it produces a lot of these powerful signals.

Spring-Block Model: A Mechanical Analogy for How Deep Neural Networks Learn and Separate Data

August 12, 2025August 12, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

I’ve been thinking a lot about how deep neural networks actually learn. I mean, those complex stacks of layers, how do they figure out the mechanics to recognize images or understand speech? These layers must be working together to make sense of raw data, but how?

Book Review: Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

August 11, 2025August 11, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Alias Grace is a historical fiction book by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was first published in 1996. I like the storytelling technique of Atwood, the flashbacks and the narration takes the reader to contemporary times. The story of Alias Grace is based on a real woman named Grace Marks, who was from Ireland and moved to Canada in the 1800s. She was found guilty of helping to kill her boss, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery. These murders were very violent and shocking. Grace was sentenced to death,…

Meet the Chip That Could Change How Your Devices Use Power

August 10, 2025August 10, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Wireless communication seems easy because it happens without us noticing, but inside, devices have to carefully balance sending data quickly, keeping the signal clear, and using as little power as possible. When devices send signals through the air, the signals aren’t always perfect, and using more power to make the signals stronger costs more battery life. That’s why a new transmitter chip from MIT and a few partner universities is turning heads.

Why Energy Spreads: Rethinking Entropy from Rockets to Language Models

August 7, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

Whenever we read or understand entropy, we tend to generalize it as a tendency towards disorder or chaos. Although the idea in itself is not entirely wrong, one of the (other) most insightful ways of looking at it is, as the tendency of energy to spread out over time. This fundamental concept governs nearly everything, right from tiny molecular collisions to vast cosmic events, from the beginning of the universe to its eventual end. Btw, here is an engaging video on youtube if you want to explore it further –…

The Stories from Space You’ll Never See in a Documentary

August 7, 2025August 7, 2025 Pooja Kashyap

I was looking for some interesting space missions but outside the usual Apollo and Hubble highlights. And then I came across this Reddit thread – interesting space missions – it pulls together a long list of probes that are genuinely fascinating but rarely talked about. The entire post has its roots in this thread.