What I see in different shades of gray, from behind my reading glasses
Bernadette Mayer’s list of journalling prompts for writing experiments.
Sam Reilly on Relational infrastructure
Data Centres to heat swimming pools
Understanding Why Searching the Internet Inflates Confidence in Explanatory Ability
Tim Bray on the LLM problem
Margaret Atwood on “The Editorial Process”
Bono & The Edge at NPR Tiny Desk
You can’t reach the brain through the ears! Adam Mastroianni
Redundancies announced again. Not a new rodeo for me, after 7 years here. What did surprise me what the significant removal of swathes of leadership teams. The narrative structures of redundancy announcements are always fascinating to me. How the media plays them back, even more so.
I’ve spent most of my days, and waking moments talking to people affected. It’s not my job. It’s emotional labour. It takes effort and energy and time. I do it because it’s the right thing for me to do. Some of the strongest relationships I’ve built were because I took the time to listen in moments like these.
It also means that reading time is out of the question. Sharing links is not likely, except for this one from Seth Godin, again just in time for me
Machine Learning as a hypothesis generation tool. “A central tenet of our paper is that hypothesis generation is in and of itself a valuable activity, and hope this encourages future work in this largely “pre-scientific” stage of science.”
Rudyard Kipling: “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
Seth Godin: Is it a t-shirt brand? I (still) wear one that was designed a month or so into Covid as a way to maintain identity of my team. The name’s been changed since, and yet the logo is memorable, and the identity still continues, nearly 2 years after the change of name. The answer: “Why would someone want to wear your name around town? What’s in it for them? Go build that and the t-shirts will take care of themselves.”
Office furniture hustlers in Silicon Valley!
Using AI to improve your public speaking
The Conversation Dance: “Think about one of the best conversations you’ve ever had. How did it make you feel? What impact did it have on you?”
Meta is rediscovering the cubicle 🙂
“What sort of hungry are you?” Not a rhetorical question at all. The focus is on the person wanting food, as opposed to the skills of the chef, or the items on the menu.
ReadTrellis – this looks like a game-changer for learners.
Your tireless, endlessly creative AI Tutor…With every Trellis, you get a Socratic Guide to teach you the material. It can even quiz you for your understanding!
On the Farnam Street blog, Why write?
Jessica Hagy: 10 Ways to go to bed satisifed
Albert Wenger’s India impressions of 2023
Dadirri: Deep Listening & Quiet Waiting
Tendayi Viki: Do Corporate Innovation programs produce results?
Did Big Tech Set up the world for an AI bias diaster?
Yeah, Elon-gate is still crashing and burning. This time with a potshot at a designer.
How Mr. Beast learns. Regardless of his financial success, the way in which he learns is insanely inspiring.
Anna Tims: What being a hospice volunteer taught me about life & death.
ChatGPT and crocheting patterns?
Yet another reminder that digital transformations ought not to start with technology. Is anyone listening?
Long Now Foundation: The Heresy of Decline Imagining the implications of a below-replacement birth rate.
Doubling down on RSS. I subscribe to a large number of varied sources of content, & can’t see life without RSS. I’m clearly not alone.
The Waluigi effect – Cleo Nardo attempts to explain GPT-n’s weird behaviours.
Seth Godin: Acknowledging “I Don’t Know” is a skill. Learn how to do it well, from people who do it well.
Paul Graham: Putting Ideas into Words “ There may exist people whose thoughts are so perfectly formed that they just flow straight into words. But I’ve never known anyone who could do this, and if I met someone who said they could, it would seem evidence of their limitations rather than their ability.”
Sarah Canaday: Commit to the intention of shaking things up
Sir Ken Robinson Finding Your Element