451
Revisiting Moneyball
Data, sports, payrolls, and memes
452
A trillion dollars (potentially) wasted on gen-AI
The machine learning community is finally waking up to the madness, but the detour of the last few years has been costly.
453
What Killed Innovation?
I entered the data visualization field in 2012, when D3.js had just come out and interactive graphics were going through a digital Renaissance. By the time I was fully steeped in the field in 2016, it felt like a new, experimental project was coming out every week—each one pushing the boundaries of how we think about…
454
The Day Instagram Blocked Democracy
#Democrat, #VoteBlue, #Bernie, #JohnOliver, and 24 other hashtags Instagram censored on the day of Trump's inauguration.
455
How the US built 5k ships in WWII
Among the most impressive manufacturing achievements of the US during WWII was the number of ships it produced.
456
What makes 5% of AI agents work in production?
Beyond the Prompt: Notes from the Context Frontier
457
The leverage arbitrage: Why everything feels broken
Something fundamental has shifted in how power works, and most of our institutions haven't noticed. We're living through what might be called "leverage arbitrage divergence"—a growing gap between...
458
The WinRAR approach
The WinRAR Approach: a small change in how I distribute content to keep the content free, sustainable, & ad-free.
459
When random people give money to random other people (2017)
A post on Decision Science about a problem of Uri Wilensky’s has been making the rounds: Imagine a room full of 100 people with 100 dollars each. With every tick of the clock, every person wi…
460
Bull markets make you feel smarter than you are
Bull markets make you feel smarter than you are. Bear markets make you feel dumber than you are.
461
The Claude Code Framework Wars
How developers are experimenting with structure, orchestration, and standards to get more out of AI coding.
462
The decline of high-tech manufacturing in the United States
America's major high-tech manufacturing industries have not escaped the general decline in manufacturing employment.
463
The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management
The unspoken agreement that made Microsoft's lower pay tolerable has fundamentally broken.
464
Mozilla says it's finally done with Onerep
In March 2024, Mozilla said it was winding down its collaboration with Onerep — an identity protection service offered with the Firefox web browser that promises to remove users from hundreds of people-search sites — after KrebsOnSecurity revealed Onerep’s founder had created dozens of people-search services and was…
465
Love your customers
There were many reasons why I left Oracle shortly after it acquired Sun, but first among them: I could not stomach the disdain that Oracle had for its own customers. Sun — for all of its (many!) other faults — loved its customers.
466
The international standard for identifying postal items
The Universal Postal Union's S10 standard, in all its glory
467
Apple's Liquid Glass: When Aesthetics Beat Function
Apple's new transparent design system has obvious readability issues that Apple's own design standards should have caught.
468
When a team is too big
What signs to look for and how to increase productivity with all-round skillset
469
The reality of working in tech: We're not hired to write code (2023)
"So, is everyone losing their minds yet?" My ex-coworker asked me over yahoo messenger. He quit after getting enraged by new work policies that specifically targeted him. I looked up from my screen,
470
YouTube views are down (don't panic)
September 15 update: @YouTubeInsider confirmed that the issue is related to viewers who have adblockers enabled—YouTube's been in an arms race with ad blocking tools, and the fallout is a substantial cut in counted views for creators who have a large audience watching from desktop. Many YouTube content creators…
471
OpenAI is a systemic risk to the tech industry
Before we go any further: I hate to ask you to do this, but I need your help — I'm up for this year's Webbys for the best business podcast award. I know it's a pain in the ass, but can you sign up and vote for Better
472
Reverse engineering my #1 Hacker News article
About a week ago, I shared a small blog article on Hacker News.
473
A 20-year-old small company
Today is Chinese New Year’s Eve, and it also happens to be the 20th anniversary of our company - our official date of incorporation was January 28, 2005. I wanted to jot down a few thoughts this morning to mark the occasion. The Beginning of the Journey At the time, I was in Shenzhen and Glacier was in Beijing. We…
474
Gumroad’s license wouldn’t meet the widely regarded definition of open source
Advisory: I am not a legal expert and there could likely be inaccuracies in this post. Today Gumroad announced that they’ve become open source, with this being echoed by the founder and on social sites like Hacker News:
475
My app just won best iOS Japanese learning tool of 2025 award (blog)
Welcome to the award show everyone! Hosted by your favourite bee... Bee! 🥳 I wanted to summarise the best tools etc out there in 2025, and what better way then to put on a fake award show! And like all true award shows and Christmas themed events, let's get into
476
How Georgists Valued land in the 1900's
The lost art of the "Somers System" of land valuation
477
Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company
The biggest hurdle is not AI capability, but founder pain tolerance.
478
One Logo, Three Companies
Fountain pens in Japan.
479
The AI wildfire is coming. it's going to be painful and healthy
AI won’t crash—it will burn. Like every tech cycle, the fire will clear the brush, redistribute talent, and leave infrastructure to power what comes next. The question is: what kind of plant are you?
480
The Era of the Business Idiot
Fair warning: this is the longest thing I've written on this newsletter. I do apologize. Soundtrack: EL-P - $4 Vic Listen to my podcast Better Offline. We have merch. Last week, Bloomberg profiled Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, revealing that he's either a liar or a specific kind of