451
Five Levels of Hype
Trying to categorize exuberance
452
McKinsey and Providence colluded to force poor patients into destitution
Providence is a health giant whose anchor is a network of Catholic hospitals. They colluded with McKinsey to steal from their poorest patients, by deceiving them about their eligibility for free care, saddling poor, sick people with crushing debts:
453
The tech interview prep industry
Before I got into tech, I worked at a tutoring company in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., doing a mix of schoolwork-related tutoring and standardized test prep. From a business perspective, it made so much sense - you have kids taking standardized tests and parents who wanted their kids to do well…
454
Launching Version 13.1 of Wolfram Language and Mathematica
Substantial set of new and updated functions in Version 13.1 covers generalized listability, language conveniences, emoji computations, default toolbar, large-scale code editing, drawing in notebooks, Tree expansion, video capture, mathematics, customizable documentation, chemical quantities, machine learning…
455
Vampire Attack Twitter
Here’s a simple way to take over Twitter for way less than $43 billion dollars.
456
The Open Source Initiative Did Not Win Neo4j vs. PureThink
everywhere it looks, OSI sees itself, and in triumph
457
Is old music killing new music?
All the growth in the music business now comes from old songs—with consumption of new music actually shrinking. How did we get here, and is there a way back?
458
How Many Tracks Do Train Stations Need?
A brief discussion on Reddit about my post criticizing Penn Station expansion plans led me to write a very long comment, which I’d like to hoist to a full post explaining how big an urban tra…
459
Maximize value, not quantity
I was chatting with a manager who was once a PO on a team I coached many years ago. This is only my best memory of the conversation (I didn'...
460
Rise of generative AI will be comparable to the rise of CGI in the early 90s
My chat with Cristóbal Valenzuela, Cofounder & CEO of Runway .
461
Olaf's New Menu Item
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
462
Scarcity Truthers
Artificial Scarcity and the Semmelweis Reflex
463
Luxury Media
I was cruising through the supermarket when a shopping-cart traffic jam stalled me in front of the “newsstand”. That word is in quotes because most things on offer aren’t news and in fact aren’t magazines in the traditional sense, but single-issue glossies about Princess Diana or Bruce Springsteen or Michelle Obama or…
464
How to design a referral program
Above: Dropbox’s innovative growth initiative — A referral program to give/get storage
465
The 13-Inch MacBook Air
It’s taken decades of iterative refinement to get to this point — a nearly perfect laptop for nearly everyone.
466
How I would sell OpenBSD as a salesperson
Let's have fun, I'm now a salesperson and I have to convince customers to buy OpenBSD, here is how I would proceed.
467
Merchant Service Horror: Amazon Pay and the Disappearing $2300
This is a story of a small e-commerce merchant who signed up for Amazon Pay: a payment processing service similar to PayPal that leverages customers’ existing Amazon accounts. It all seemed so promising. Amazon Pay would provide an easier checkout experience for my customers, with the shipping address and payment…
468
The Inner Osborne Effect (2021)
In software development, we talk a lot about software anti-patterns, how to recognize them, and how to extricate yourself from them via refactoring.
469
Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make
Now this is pretty weird: I just got blocked by Twitter for a tweet that I did not make:
470
How to distort Scrum until it no longer works
Hot takes and cold truths on software, startups, and the lies we tell ourselves.
471
The IKEA Effect – Why managers fall in love with their own ideas
When and why the IKEA effect causes people to overvalue their own ideas. Examples of organisational pitfalls of the IKEA effect. 4 ways you can defend against the IKEA effect: 1) Acknowledge your unconscious bias; 2) Spike rough prototypes; 3) Talk to customers; 4) Run growth experiments
472
473
2022 Letter
Zhengdong Wang’s personal website
474
How to Sell Your Startup
One year ago, my startup was acquired. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to run an acquisition process yourself.
475
Is Europe just not good at innovating?
This article is part of a series on (European) innovation and capabilities. Feedback is very welcome on bert@hubertnet.nl. I’d also like to thank the many proofreaders, but all mistakes remain mine! In the world of (high) technology, Europe is exceptionally weak at innovating. There are many ways to explain how this…
476
Can Slack-mania be cured with systemized discipline?
On looking for alternatives to Slack culture.
477
A brief reflection on Mac software stagnation
I’ve been feeling a certain stagnation in Mac software these past few years. In this piece I try to understand why.
478
479
What would open sourcing the Twitter algorithm actually look like?
What would “open sourcing the Twitter algorithm” actually look like? In Part 1 of this series, we focus on understanding how Twitter’s algorithmic feed works under the hood.
480
Victoria III – First Impressions
Bret Devereaux (A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry)2022142 points92 commentsGames & Graphics details
This week’s post is coming to you all a bit early, as the folks at Paradox Interactive were kind enough to send me a review code for Victoria III – Paradox Interactive’s long awai…