Charlie Loyd @vruba@everything.happens.horse

I believe that if we want SI units to happen in the US, we need to use them (with conversions as necessary), but also, this is true. https://mastodon.murkworks.net/@moira/110733195680813087

Avoiding thinking by mapping: an easy, sustainable mental health strategy.

Drafting and then deleting a talk page argument for why Wikipedia’s eucalypt articles are slightly mis-organized.

@migurski 💰💼🤠💨

@grantimatter Truly you seem like a blogger out of time, in the best way: neither old-fashioned nor futuristic, but a disciple of some slightly different creed of which “blogging” is only the best translation in this dimension.

@llimllib Ooo! How did I miss this? Do you do RSS/anything?

Toying with the idea of a linkblog – just web links with 0–3 paragraphs of commentary. Unsure what form this would take. Also not sure I would have the time to keep it going if I got a regular job again. Open to takes.

@kgjenkins oh buddy

@sgillies We’re at something like 150% the mean water year here. Really hoping it doesn’t mean what it seems like it might mean for the fire season.

@mwichary I’m sure you know this classic: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxhp0000532

@mendel “Something people don’t talk about enough is that the planet’s dry surface is basically flat. Most business there is happening on one level, effectively in a single plane. But the ocean is 3D. McKinsey predicts massive growth in immersive technology in the coming decade, and there are more than 1e18 m² of volume – that’s 3D volume – in the ocean, all of it potentially immersive. So the amount of room for business in the ocean is literally off this chart I made.”

@mendel “Oh, you want to know what the total addressable market for my business is? Great question. Let me answer it with a question of my own: Got a map handy? And the number of a good crime scene cleanup service? Because I’m about to blow. Your. Mind.” And then we cut to a reverse shot of a VC making lovey eyes.

@mwichary In about November 1999, I was in the V&A looking at the cast of the inscription of Trajan’s Column when a lot of students appeared around me and started discussing it. I introduced myself, and it turned out It was a typography class from the University of Reading. One of the professors was very excited that they had just been assigned an e-mail address that they could give me. Then for five minutes everyone tried to remember how to write an @. I think of this every time I see a good @.

It’s such a classic MBA-and-no-sense thing for an exec to say. It’s beautiful. It’s ten thousand times more damning than “One former employee said he seemed to ‘drink a lot of his own Kool-Aid’” or whatever. It’s the perfect quote. Sometimes doing things experts disagree with works, but the guy who’s like “Did you know Einstein failed math?” is going to cause more harm than a supervillain could.

The bit where the guy in charge repeats a factoid this thin as if it’s persuasive and illuminating, because he thinks it’s his vision that matters more than his money, is something that I think most reasonably experienced tech workers would recognize as an even bigger red flag than the parts where he’s like “And now I will use unrated equipment in a safety-of-life application against the strong objections of experts!”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-titan-submersible-was-an-accident-waiting-to-happen

@merrysky Yo, I’m seeing big discontinuities in my forecast (in this case, late on Sunday), presumably from models not matching up. Is this expected?