What I learned this week Software Jev vs the trolley problem Business/Finance Delta picked up biscoff because of a peanut shortage Interesting Links NFL Kicker MVP in 1982 Math/Stat Travel Zugspitze, tallest mtn in Germany would be cool to visit Other If you’re operating a booth at a conference you need a small thing to give people to watch or ask questions about. This gives them an easy on ramp to a conversation or it allows them to wait a second until someone is available to speak to them.

What I learned this week Software Business/Finance Interesting Links Breaking down bad stats Across AZ gravel Race Math/Stat Travel Other Attended conference notes: Audrey Tang was cool when CFCs were destroying the ozone did we just kill refrigeration… no Ted Tremper was well spoken and could handle a crowd well The people making the most money are working the most aggressively and there is a clear incentive to be more aggressive How do we create a society that works well with stronger and stronger technology because we will have that in the future not only in LLMs A good way to invoke a change without being accusatory: “that made me uncomfortable”

What I learned this week Software Business/Finance Interesting Links World Cup viewers exposed to junk food, alcohol and gambling branding every seven seconds Backwardation is a market condition where the price of a commodity’s forward or futures contract price is trading below the spot price. The opposite of backwardation is contango, when the futures price is higher than the spot price. Math/Stat Travel Faroe Islands restaurant looks dope

What I learned this week Software everyone now needs a shitty classifier? Dim tables duckDB When a query groups on long, repeated strings, move the strings into a small dimension table with sorted, narrow integer keys. Aggregate on the keys, then join the strings back in at the very end. The query works as before, though on small fixed-width integers instead of variable-length text. Business/Finance Interesting Links Tooth Pain

What I learned this week Software dbtcharts Business/Finance Legal? Onion futures “If it’s against the law to make money… then I’m guilty” Also the reason onion futures are illegal Interesting Links Why the coors light cans change color Math/Stat Travel Other Lonesome_Dove

What I learned this week Software Borg backups Business/Finance Interesting Links Doing everyone else’s job How are oil reserves are stored Math/Stat Travel Other

What I learned this week Software Business/Finance Interesting Links Citi Bike Boys Math/Stat Travel Other You will make a change when the pain of your circumstances exceeds the fear of doing something different.

What I learned this week Software Suica Cards Business/Finance American AIrlines regional carriers Interesting Links Recycling Its funny how its easy to message “this is good” and “this is bad” yet invariably things aren’t “100% good” or “100% bad” and depends on use/circumstance Electric plane Math/Stat Travel Other Recipe for a good burger: Trader Joe’s Masala burger patty Green chutney Sechuan sauce

What I learned this week Software LG sucks Cool way to use duckdb + obsidian amazing article on compression and LLMs Business/Finance U.S. Portfolio Holdings of Foreign Securities at Year-End 2023 Interesting Links Some good honey Math/Stat Travel Other Knowing what you want is the competitive advantage Cooking analogy: Two people can make same “dish” but one is way better Watching someone make bread vs doing it Won’t even know the questions to ask until you do it

What I learned this week Software LLMs are the commodity, not people Good video on the GIL Business/Finance Gotta love parm Interesting Links Food recommended to me by an uber driver in DC More food recommended to me by an uber driver in DC Math/Stat Travel Other Random thoughts I had about comparison. How to weigh yourself without a scale. Without a scale or any thing you know the dimensions/volume of… this becomes impossible to do in standard units We constantly create tools to measure ourselves We build these tools with standard units so that we can compare ourselves Things like weight, speed, etc… Even age is just something we’ve codified despite being just how long it takes for our spinning ball to go around a much hotter spinning ball and how fast our spinning ball spins We constantly create these paradigms because they are useful/convenient but they also can become our own enemy Social media creates a level playing field to constantly see what others are doing When we take away these measurements do people become happier?