things i learned

This week's token stream

2024-10-18

Things I learned

The last person to be guillotined in France was put to death in 1977. The Rest Is History, Wikipedia.

The Barnum effect isĀ individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. Hat tip to Simon Wilson who brought this to me.

Worth your time

ā€œMeanwhile, those who study, pray, and commit acts of loving-kindness keep the world going.ā€ Cluny Journal

How young men and women (mis)understand each other. American Storylines.

Internet of Bugs, a software developer + YouTube Creator reviews o1 and sees it as a step change for AI.

Engelsberg Ideas on the missing quality of judgement. Iā€™ve noticed that product management orgs in particular are often embarrassed by the degree to which the job depends on judgement; instead, I think they should embrace it.

How drones are changing the war in Ukraine.

Observations

When Iā€™m in execution mode, I find myself searching for slack in my schedule to eek out just a little bit more productivity. When I look at my to do list this way, I start to see the little things I can do here and there regardless of priority. But eventually what happens is that I begin reordering my to do list away from whatā€™s important and towards what I can do quickly. The urgent overwhelms the important.

I suspect that the Creator Economy is coming for software development. In the same way that the iphone made it so that anyone can make a video, LLMs are making it so anyone can make software. This makes it even more important to be focused on who the software is for and how it integrates into the life of the user. Nicheness is even more important.

Meaning comes from cost. If itā€™s free to do, you wonā€™t feel ownership of it.

California's changing climate

2024-07-20

A fantastic piece by Paul Kedrosky on how California's Atmospheric River is changing and the implications of these changes.

Lots of great stuff in it, but this was totally new to me:

A predator-prey model is a mathematical representation of the interactions between two species: a predator and prey. It is often modeled as wolves, sheep, and grass. The most common model is the Lotka-Volterra, which consists of two differential equations. There are two stable equilibria: one with predator and prey in approximate balance, and one with both extinct

The English coined "soccer"

2024-03-27

From my friends at Duolingo:

The people that affectionately call their Prince William "Wills" and Ā£5 and Ā£10 notesĀ ~"fivers" and "tenners"~Ā are responsible for shortening "Association Football" to just "Assoc."ā€”which, when written, looks like it might be pronounced "Assock."Ā (This "Association Football" name is the same as the FrenchĀ Football AssociationĀ in FIFA!) In late 1800s England, at Oxford, there was also a fad of addingĀ -erĀ to some words. And thus, "soccer" was born. In England. šŸ“󠁧󠁢󠁄󠁮󠁧ó æ

Quantity precedes quality

2024-03-25

Found via Dynomight:

Quality over quantity.Ā I often worry that I write too much on this blog. After all, the world has aĀ lotĀ of text. Does it need more? Shouldnā€™t I pick some small number of essays and really perfect them?ā€ØArguably, no. Youā€™ve perhaps heard of the pottery class where students graded on quantity produced more quality than thoseĀ gradedĀ on quality. (It was actually aĀ photography class.) For scientists, the best predictor of having a highly cited paper is just writing lots of papers. As I write these words, I have no idea if any of this is good and I try not to think about it.

I hadnā€™t heard this before, but I do find it to be true. Creativity is a habit. The way to quality is through quantity.