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'Terminator' 1 and 2 Save Their Reveals for the Right Time
And Other Thoughts on James Cameron's Classic
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Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out
In many contexts, the individual value from consuming a product or service increases as more people consume it. The more of your peers who join TikTok, for example, the more value you probably see in joining yourself. Building on this logic, it’s possible that products like social media not only offer greater utility…
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I hate almost all software (2011)
It's unnecessary and complicated at almost every layer. At best I can congratulate someone for quickly and simply solving a problem on top of the shit that they are given. The only software that I like is one that I can easily understand and solves my problems. The amount of complexity I'm willing to tolerate is…
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The longest straight line in Great Britain without crossing a public road
In short, I believe I've found a longer straight line without crossing a public road than the line identified by Ordnance Survey in 2019. Im...
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Natural language is an unnatural interface
How can we use familiar design patterns to constrain the unwieldy state space of large language models?
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The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson's Get Back (2022)
A Special Edition of The Ruffian
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A Tale of Unwanted Disruption: My Week Without Amazon
On Wednesday, May 31, 2023, I finally regained access to my Amazon account after an unexpected and unwarranted lockout that lasted nearly…
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Everyone's getting ghosted, the new normal in tech recruiting
The new normal in tech recruiting
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1 in 6 retirees are considering returning to work, and 53% want remote positions
In the last few years, the pandemic and inflation in the U.S. have upended peoples’ lives in different levels making young people adjust their retirement goals.
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France's largest semiconductor company got nationalized in plain sight (2022)
A power struggle was actually China encroaching on France's Largest Company. France decided to nationalize instead.
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A basic guide to using Asian names
When should you use someone's family name first? And is Kim a first name or a last name? The Asia Media Centre looks at Asian naming conventions.
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AI is just someone else's intelligence
It’s been a long time since I’ve worked in the field of ML (or what some call AI), and we’ve come a long way from simple text classification to what’s being casually called generative AI today. While the technology has made many advances, the foundational concepts of machine learning have remained analogous over time…
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The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People
The astonishing story of how a movement’s quest for rural simplicity drifted into a formula for mass death
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Requiem for a bank loan
A brief retrospective on an attractive product First Republic used to offer, and a wider discourse on the banking crisis.
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I give up on free software phones (2019)
A blog about free software and programming
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Eton and all the murder (2019)
As recent politics illustrates, Eton has a reputation for producing pupils who achieve high office, but who are not sufficiently competent to hold high office. One thing that is rarely mentioned, however, is all the murder.
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EU Cyber Resilience Act: What does it mean for open source?
The final compromise text of the EU Cyber Resilience Act is now officially available, and various open source voices are currently opining on it. This is a complex act and other parts of the open source world (like the Eclipse Foundation and NLNet Labs) have been hard at work to advocate with the EU and member states…
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Mapping hospital accessibility with OpenStreetMap
Using OpenStreetMap data to craft a self-hosted interactive map of hospital accessibility in Virginia.
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Religious and spiritual folklore surrounding programming
You've been visited by St. Ignucious. Upvote for success in FOSS
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Do heat pumps work in cold climates?
Heat pumps work even in very, very cold weather. Thanks to technological advancements in recent decades, heat pumps keep your home toasty warm even when the temperature drops dramatically. In fact, eight of the major heat pump companies — Bosch, Carrier, Daikin, Johnson Controls, Lennox, Midea, Rheem, and Trane…
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UCLA professor refuses to cover for Dan Ariely in issue of data provenance
In one of the more bizarre twists of the Dan Ariely saga, there is a huge issue of provenance in one of Dan Ariely’s studies. The study in question is Dan Ariely’s Ten Commandments study at JMR. The hugely impactful paper has over 3,000 citations but unfortunately failed to replicate in a large-scale systematic…
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Unblocking User Freedom: the right to use adblockers
Companies increasingly aim to control how users interact with their content online, threatening user freedom. As more companies crack down on browser exten...
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Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte
Ethan Marcotte's book, "You Deserve a Tech Union," provides a mix of practical guidelines and steps that tech workers can take to form a union.
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The grid isn’t ready for 300M EVs by 2030
Electric vehicle (EV) owners tend to leave their cars charging overnight, putting pressure on the grid. This habit must change, Stanford researchers say.
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Why did The Beatles get so many bad reviews?
An inquiry into how critics stumble
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How the design of Disney parks affects our perspective (2020)
The layout of the Disney parks may not be something you think about except for at the end of the day when your feet are aching and sitting feels like the best ride ever. Or when you're hiking around the Epcot World Showcase in the blazing sun and afternoon heat.
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