Paul Saurini wakes at 4am and, instead of reaching for a screen, reads Richard W. Hamming’s The Art of Doing Science and Engineering. On Quantum Recall Episode 16 he also recovers from a round of yard work that ended in a major chest spasm, and confesses to a literally big head after a motorcycle helmet fitting.

From there it’s Siri getting dumber by the week, the headache of grabbing matching social media handles on TikTok, YouTube and X, a free pastrami Smashburger paid forward, and why LinkedIn suddenly feels refreshing. In the AI segment, Paul gets serious about his digital clone project and watches Claude crop and color correct an entire scanner bed of photos in seconds.

What’s in Quantum Recall Episode 16

• 4am with Hamming: starting the day with The Art of Doing Science and Engineering instead of a phone
• The chest spasm: yard work that went sideways, and the recovery that followed
• Big head energy: a motorcycle helmet fitting reveals Paul’s head is literally big
• Siri gets dumber: why Apple’s assistant seems to be getting worse, not better
• Social media handle hell: trying to lock down matching names on TikTok, YouTube and X
• Paying it forward: a free pastrami Smashburger, and why LinkedIn feels refreshing
• AI segment: Paul’s digital clone project, and Claude cropping and color correcting a full scanner bed of photos in seconds

From the Pre-Show to the Main Show

The night before, on the Quantum Recall Pre-Show, Paul reported from AVX and looked back on a revolutionary month of building with AI. Quantum Recall Episode 16 keeps that AI thread going with his digital clone project and a photo-editing job that took Claude seconds.

Watch Quantum Recall Episode 16 on YouTube →

Episode Timeline

Quantum Recall Episode 16 is the first main show to stream live on Facebook. Paul Saurini celebrates by reading Richard W. Hamming at 4 a.m., living through a chest spasm from yard work, proving he has a literally big head, and making the case that Siri keeps getting dumber on purpose. Later he lays out his digital clone plan, shows off a Halloween track he generated with AI, and revisits Mötley Crüe’s take on grunge.

What we talked about

7:00 · 4 a.m. with Hamming. Instead of screens, Paul starts the day with The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn, a friend’s recommendation, puzzles over its line about science versus engineering, and recommits to lifelong learning. The bonus: no screens meant he fell right back to sleep. “That’s me checking whether I’d survive as a 1970s dad.”

10:01 · The chest spasm. Cutting back bushes so his parents’ sprinklers could reach some big dry spots ended in violent pectoral spasms. Paul asks Grok on air whether cardiac arrest is a kind of muscle spasm, and it walks him through the difference. His verdict: “harmless” is not how it felt.

14:02 · Halloween prep and a director who needs direction. Quentyn, the AI assistant named for Quentin Tarantino, keeps delivering gorgeous Halloween scenes with Paul standing in the middle like a lifeless poster. Paul writes better prompts himself (zombie sneaks up, fangs appear, zombie runs) to show that every clip needs a story.

18:01 · Big head energy. It’s no metaphor: at the motorcycle shop the saleswoman laughed until the helmets didn’t fit. Paul reads the big-head jokes his assistant Ava wrote, then tests whether Ava and his chief of staff, Jarvis, will notice they’re being addressed when they review the show transcript.

22:00 · Siri gets dumber. “Remind me in the morning” now means 9 a.m., and when Paul changes it to 7, Siri says it did and didn’t. His theory: make the free assistant annoying so people pay for the smarter upgrade. He adds a bigger point about phone and car menus: every extra tap you force on drivers is a safety risk.

27:01 · Social media handle hell. Locking down matching handles for his new software and T-shirt brands means battling Instagram-to-Facebook linking and TikTok’s endless identity checks. “The CIA asks fewer questions.”

30:03 · A free pastrami Smashburger, paid forward. On a weekly lunch with his dad, an employee comps the $15 New York pastrami double, and Paul answers with a $10 tip and some respect for honorable work. Then a quick note on the new voiced bumpers for the upcoming audio podcast feed.

39:01 · LinkedIn, nuance and the digital clone. LinkedIn feels refreshing, except for people who assume your whole worldview from one detail. Paul then explains his digital clone plan: hours of even-toned voice recording, glare-free lighting and a separate wardrobe, guided by an AI assistant modeled on AI-clone pioneer Julia McCoy.

47:00 · Claude and the scanner bed. Instead of cropping and color-correcting old family photos from Italy one by one in Photoshop, Paul hands a whole scanned panel to Claude and gets back individually cropped, corrected files in a zip in seconds.

1:08:01 · AI music without the slop. A music video reportedly made by Claude impresses Paul, but he wants a behind-the-scenes look at the many steps it must have taken. He plays his own AI-generated Halloween piece (dark dubstep with church organs, choir and strings) and floats a Quantum Recall soundtrack on Spotify.

1:15:06 · Mötley Crüe vs. grunge. An old clip of the band reacting to grunge wiping out hair metal. Paul sides with Tommy Lee welcoming the shake-up and calls Lee’s solo work the best of any Crüe member.

Quantum Recall streams live every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. MT from Denver, with a Wednesday pre-show warm-up.

Catch the pre-show: Cot Naps, the AI Revolution & Why AV Tech at AVX Shuns AI | Quantum Recall Pre-Show

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