1. When is AI coding not AI coding?
You might have heard something about how Google now creates a quarter of its code using AI. But as with most things concerning everyone’s favourite hot tech, the devil is in the details. And the details, according to this poster on Hacker News, are that what’s being counted here as “written” by AI is, in fact, lines being written by a human being using autocomplete suggestions. This is a bit like saying this blog post was “written” by AI, because Word also has autocomplete. But hey, the stock market loves the idea that AI will replace humans.
2. Hey, Matt, this is how you do it
In contrast to the ever-deepening hole that Matt Mullenweg is digging both himself and WordPress into, John O’Nolan of Ghost has written a wonderfully clear piece on how the company has tried to avoid falling into the same pitfalls. This involves having a simple structure that’s all about a non-profit, and not aiming to be too big. It makes me very glad that I backed their original Kickstarter.
3. Beast-ly behaviour
What is it about YouTubers and their inability to avoid getting involved in crypto scams? The latest is that loveable rogue Mr Beast. MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, acts like a YouTube’s answer to a mad scientist with a credit card and a mission.
He’s also created MrBeast Burger, so technically, he’s the only YouTuber who might surprise you with is meat. But it turns out, he also has an interesting web of crypto wallets and a habit of being in the right place at the right time for the kind of dodgy coin drops which make some people a lot of money while pulling in a lot of suckers.
4. How to lose 8% of your subscribers almost overnight
Be as dumb as Jeff Bezos. And that number continues to grow. Perhaps Jeffy is thinking that he can just replace them all with MAGA-hat wearing morons.
5. AI loves old white dudes
And speaking of AI, it turns out to the surprise of absolutely no one that resume/CV screening AI systems prefer white male job candidates to the majority of the human beings on the planet – who happen to not be white males. Garbage in, garbage out. Bias in, “hugely exciting development in HR”.
6. Just because the flood water is that high doesn’t mean you can’t deliver food
The floods in Spain are, of course, a tragic natural disaster. But like most tragic natural disasters, less people would have been killed without the ineffable urge of stupid human beings to put innocent people in danger. First, there is Carlos Mazon, president of the right wing government of Valencia who shut down the Valencia Emergencies Unit as soon as he took office. This was the body who were supposed to provide a rapid response in the event of natural disasters. Like, you know, floods.
Then of course there was the contribution of our wonderful capitalist task masters such as those at Uber Eats and Glovo, who forced delivery drivers to make their usual deliveries during the worst floods in living memory. Well done lads, well done.
7. Toasted bunnies
How do you lose a 40% discount from a supplier overnight, one that would have saved you hundreds of millions of dollars? Ask Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger, who managed to offend chip foundry TSMC with some unwise comments about the stability of Taiwan. This is just one example of how Gelsinger has mismanaged the company, apparently learning all the wrong lessons from the legendary Andy Grove. It’s now got the point where companies that Grove’s Intel would have treated as little more than annoyances are credible suitors for a purchase of the company.
8. The lonely death of Vigo the Carpathian
I would put Ghostbusters II in the sparsely populated category of “sequels that are better than the original”. You might remember it: a lot of the plot revolves around the attempt of a horrible 16th century tyrant and sorcerer to come back to life, possibly by using the life force of Sigourney Weaver’s baby. Or something. It’s all very silly and very fun.
Anyway, the actor who played Vigo — which, as his lines were dubbed by Max Von Sydow, mostly involve standing around and scowling — had something of an interesting life. Wilhelm von Homberg was, by almost all accounts, a thoroughly unpleasant man who may or may not have been the father of his sister (don’t ask). He was someone who never let an opportunity to insult someone pass him by.
And by the time he developed the cancer which eventually killed him, he was basically living in his car. It’s a slightly crazy story, and well worth a read.
9. Stoicism and the technorati
I have always been a little bit suspicious is stoicism. Or rather, I have been a bit suspicious of the kind of people – almost always men – who dive into stoicism and find a philosophy of life for themselves.
So I was surprised to find just how level-headed and likable Ryan Holliday is. Ryan has written many books explaining stoicism in layperson’s terms, and is popular amongst the kind of Silicon Valley people I loathe. But I’m not going to hold that against him.
10. Wise writing advice
Cory Doctorow is super-productive. During lockdown he wrote nine books, which makes my two short stories and a hatful of blog posts look like amateur hour. So how does he do it?
Mostly with some really very simple processes, the main one of which is setting yourself a really small daily goal of the kind that you have no excuses whatever for not completing. A page a day, for example, is something you can write in 20 minutes if you’re as ferocious a typer as Cory (or me, for that matter).