Andrew Glassner

@glassner.com

506 Followers 619 Following

I write, draw, and make music. Also computer and math stuff. Seeker of wisdom, creativity, kindness, and roasted garlic. andrewglassner.substack.com 🏳️‍🌈 🇨🇦

Two colorful sidewalk mosaics from Vancouver, BC.
A young woman who is happy, ecstatic, thrilled, exuberant, deli rious, head thrown back, shouting with overwhelming happiness, fists pumping in waves of joy
Three containers with smooth plastic lids that need to be turned.
A photograph of a market stand featuring many varieties of apples.
A color photograph of multiple stairways at strange angles heading down to an observation point over a body of water
A color photograph of a woman in a kayak in open water, with high rugged mountains in the distance.
Left: A mosaic of the Lion's Gate Bridge, with a boat passing underneath. Right: A mosaic of a huge red-and-gold dragon being carried aloft by many people in a parade.
A color synthetic photo of a scarecrow in an elevator that has mirrors in front of him and behind him. He is taking a selfie. We see the endless chain of images of the scarecrow's front and back creating reflections.
A composite color photograph of a sheep with a wolf's head, standing in a field.
A color photo of a bridge over a river. It's winter, and snow is falling. Photo by Spencer Shellborn, https://www.pexels.com/photo/bridge-above-river-in-winter-landscape-15325640/
A photo of two pieces of burnt toast on a white plate with blue stripes. The text above reads "Do Chatbots Have Emotions?" The text below reads "Open Season" and "andrewglassner.substack.com".
A photo of an old-fashioned typesetter's box showing the wood-and-metal slugs for different letters.
A color photo from inside a ridiculously ornate building. Gold filigree and marble excess is everywhere.
Three book covers, all written by Ursula K. Le Guin: The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed, and The Left Hand of Darkness.
A photo of a pizza disaster, showing the inside of an oven. A frozen pizza was placed directly on the top wire shelf and it melted down to the bottom of the oven. Most of the outer crust remains on the shelf, with streamers of cheese hanging down from it. On the bottom of the oven is a molten glob of cheese and other pizza stuff.
A cartoon image of a tree in a forest. A wooden board is nailed to the tree at a slight angle. On the board are the words "Open Season". Below that is the URL andrewglassner.substack.com. The image is a collage of modified public domain art from the web. The typeface is Mirisch, regular weight.
The cover of the novel The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry. It shows small silhouettes of man and woman on a horse on a brown field. Behind them the field rises in to a mountain, and the sun is visible to the side, all together forming an abstracted heart.
A 3D image rendered in Houdini. A yellow ball sits inside a larger, red ball. The yellow ball has a texture like thick paste. The red ball seems to be made of many small and large worms on its surface.
A house near Davie and Bute streets in Vancouver BC.
The cover of Moonbound by Robin Sloan. It shows a low-contrast view of a cloudy sky, with a tear revealing the inky blackness of space, and a faraway planet.
A Yamaha FG800 guitar on a stand near an apartment wall. The top of the guitar has a distinctive vertical grain.
Cover of Deep Learning: A Visual Approach by Andrew Glassner, showing a cartoon robot. The robot has pulled back the top of his head to reveal a "brain" full of light bulbs. With his other hand, he is inserting an additional, even larger lightbulb.
A pair of photos. On the left is a white coat hook hung over a door. On the right is the illustration from the back of the hook's packaging, showing a strangely curved and bent hook over a broken door with jagged lighting bolts in its frame, where the top doesn't line up with the side, and a strange circle (out of perspective) might be doorknob.
Photo of a magazine article reading "Palaeontologists have discovered around two dozen fossil specimens of dogs ranging in age from 35,500 to 13,000 years old across..."
Four book covers: Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry, Moonbound by Robin Sloan, and The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
A section of a page from "Quantum Computing: From Concepts to Code." It reads as follows: "Who Wrote This Book? As of 2025, AI-based systems that are capable of producing text (in addition to generating other media) are changing the landscape of writing. People are using chatbots to write office memos, term papers, business proposals, newspaper articles, technical reports, and probably anything else that’s based on text, from love letters to birthday cards. It can be hard to know whether you’re reading something written by a person or the output of a program trained to produce text that is statistically similar to that written by a person. The result is that it can be challenging to know how much trust we can place in anything we read: Are we reading something produced by a real person, or a clever simulation? So, I think it’s important for you to know where this book came from. It came from me, Andrew, the guy whose name is on the cover. Every word, every letter, every comma and parenthesis came from me (or one of my won- derful human editors). With the exception of plots showing actual data and circuit diagrams produced by a library following my explicit instructions, I drew every figure by hand. I used a wide variety of software tools to help me write text, create images, run quantum programs, check the math, and provide other support, but none of them wrote any of the book."
Picture of me holding up (and looking at) my brand-new book "Quantum Computing: From Concepts to Code" from No Starch Press.
A photo of Vancouver Harbour, showing a boat gas station and a seaplane ready to take off. The text reads, "SIGGRAPH 2025 Presents a math-free course for everyone: An Introduction to Quantum Computing. Instructor: Andrew Glassner. Monday 11 August, 2:00-3:30PM PDT. Vancouver Centre West, Ballroom C. Great prep for the Quantum Teleportation Lab & hands-on programming: Wednesday, 3:15 - 4:45 pm"
A photograph of a small building on stilts on the Vancouver, BC shoreline. Text in the upper right, against a lightly clouded sky, reads, "SIGGRAPH 2025 Presents a math-free intro course to the Fourier Transform. Instructor: Andrew Glassner. Tuesday 12 August, 9:00 - 10:30 AM PDT. Vancouver Centre West, Rooms 301-305"
Poster for a Lab at SIGGRAPH 2025. The voxel whale sculpture at the Vancouver Convention Center is on the right. On the left is text reading "SIGGRAPH 2025 presents a hands-on lab for quantum teleportation. Instructor: Andrew Glassner. Wednesday, 13 August 2025, 3:15-4:45 PM PDT." At the bottom is text reading, "Vancouver Convention Center West Building, Exhibit Hall B"
The cover of "Quantum Computing: From Concepts to Code." The illustration, in yellow, black, and white, shows a box full of cartoon robots looking up at a claw-machine grabber that appears ready to pick up one of them at random.
A photo of a Vancouver Public Library card next to a pen on a wooden table.
A photo of a desktop showing a pen and a library card from the Vancouver Public Library in British Columbia, Canada
A photograph of tracks in freshly-fallen snow in Seattle. I don't recognize what kind of animal made these.
A pencil construction drawing of a ring-tailed lemur from a photo, by someone with no knowledge of its anatomy. Rough drawing in orange Colerase pencil, selections in blue Colerase.
A screenshot of the most recent three recent followers to my account. They are all fake pornbot accounts with similar names: Aleexa, Alexianne, and Alexxandria
Pencil sketch of an abstract human person leaning to the right, against a wall, looking down. The head, chest, and pelvis are shown. Each limb appears in two places (arms above and below the elbow, legs above and below the knee). The shapes are minimal tapered cones with some radius variation. The viewpoint is at the side and there's no perspective, so the image appears flattened, as a collection
An abstract person is standing and leaning into the right wall of the image, looking downward. The background is medium brown. The person is drawn in masses on 3 layers. In back, filled with black, are the head and left limbs. The chest is in the middle in gray. The right limbs are closest to us in very light red. The arms are drawn as one shape for bicep, and one for forearm and hand. The legs are a thigh, and a combined calf and foot. On the far (black, left) leg we see a kneecap.
Four woodless pencils. Each is black or dark gray, making them hard to distinguish. I wrapped a piece of yellow tape around the end of each one, labeling it with the grade of the pencil's lead. The labels are H, 2, 4, 6 (for HB, 2B, 4B, and 6B).
A little drawing exercise. The red squiggle was drawn with closed eyes and no intent. Then I opened my eyes and tried to find a character. I saw a dog, and drew it in black ink.
Two drawings of a woodland creature. On left is the original pencil on paper. On right, inks and grays drawn over the pencils in Photoshop.
A pencil drawing of a bird. The pencil is a Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.5 with HB lead, on Strathmore 300 series drawing paper.
Imaginary business card for Howard Fenderman, Industrial Clown. It features elegant text and a big red nose.
Drawings of two statues from the Astro Bot game. Pencils on Strathmore paper, then inked with Pentel SES-15C brush pen.
Abstract. Trying out Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens on Strathmore paper.
An abstract design. Pencil on paper, inked in Photoshop.
Abstract drawing. Ink on paper, cleaned up in Photoshop.
Study for a stained-glass window. Pencils on left, colors in Photoshop on right.
Abstract drawing. Black ink on paper, brush pen.
Abstract drawing, pen and ink on paper.
Drawing of a head. Pencil and ink on paper.
An imaginary spaceship. Pencils and inks on paper, colors in Photoshop
Abstract drawing using brush pen on paper.
A study of a stained-glass window. Left: A pencil sketch for a texture for a tortoise shell, organic lattice, or stained-glass window. Right: Colored in Photoshop.
Work in progress. A pencil sketch of an alien spaceship.
Black-and-red hand-drawn organic ship. Pitt brush and Pilot G-2 pens.
A collection of 3D geometric shapes made by origami.
A friendly green lizard looking around