This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. In comparison, our sensory systems gather data at bits/s. The stark contrast between these numbers remains unexplained and touches on fundamental aspects of brain function: what neural substrate sets this speed limit on the pace of our existence?

You’re likely reading this text in a browser. Press Ctrl+F (⌘+F on macOS) and search for the word "text" on this page. The browser will instantly show you how many times the word appears. Even in texts hundreds of times longer than this page, browsers can quickly find the desired substring. Today, we’ll look at the algorithms that make this possible.

I can’t get through a zoom call, a conference talk, or an afternoon scroll through LinkedIn without hearing about vectors. Do you feel like the term vector is everywhere this year? It is. Vector actually means several different things and it's confusing. Vector means AI data, GIS locations, digital graphics, and a type of query optimization, and more. The terms and uses are related, sure. They all stem from the same original concept. However their practical applications are quite different.

So “Vector” is my choice for this year’s name collision of the year.