You should watch Adam Savage talk about a pencil

April 25, 2024

Williams F1 only just stopped using Excel to manage their build

I can’t even.

It is not an exaggeration to say that up to and including at least the initial work on the 2024 Williams, its car builds were handled using Microsoft Excel, with a list of around 20,000 individual components and parts.

According to Vowles, the Excel spreadsheet was being migrated to a digital system at the same time the car’s technology base” was going through its own colossal overhaul.

April 1, 2024

Mark Pesce thinks Autonomous Agents are the Future

But…

The amount of computational power that will require is staggering.

Pesce quotes Wim Vanderbauwhede:

As a society we need to start treating computational resources as finite and precious, to be utilised only when necessary, and as effectively as possible.”

April 1, 2024

Pop culture, according to the right wing, should be frivolous. Because before the internet, it was something sold to girls by corporations run by powerful men. Famous pop stars through the ages, like Frank Sinatra, America’s first Justin Bieber, or The Beatles, the One Direction of their time, would be canonized as Great by Serious Men after history had forgotten they rocketed to success as their generation’s Tumblr Sexymen.

– Ryan Broderick: Taylor Swift vs. the manosphere

February 1, 2024

A manager’s deliverable is a decision

Johanna Rothman in the alpha list.CTO Podcast

January 19, 2024

Five things I like right now

Listen

Smoove and Turrell is peak Northern Soul. Just the thing for getting into the groove of the new year.

Watch

Are we still in the doldrums post the writers strike? Nothing new is very good. Season 2 of Reacher is pretty good, I guess.

Read

Gosh, the Thursday Murder Club books are good.

Also Ali Abdaals Feel Good Productivity was not what I expected, in a good way.

Eat

Biscotti which must be assertively crunchy”. The recipe in this old Guardian article is very good.

Think

Going to need to plan out the year, somehow.

January 19, 2024 now

Turns out cars really are smartphone accessories

Disney+ apps aren’t in Teslas any more because Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger don’t like each other.

Vulture:

The move comes a month after several major companies, including Disney, Apple, and Sony, pulled advertising from X because the site is becoming a racist, transphobic cesspool whose owner is promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories.

December 20, 2023

Five things I like right now

Listen

It’s Christmas so get into Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings It’s a Holiday Soul Party.

Watch

I am in the depths of nostalgia for The West Wing. It holds up.

Read

I’ve been reading a bunch of strategy books. Chet Richard’s Certain to Win is a good one.

Eat

Natalie Paull’s book Beatrix Bakes is full of complicated recipes but they are all worth the effort.

Think

Gosh it’s a been a year.

December 20, 2023 now

You should be wearing two watches

Antonio G. Di Benedetto in The Verge

A little over a year ago, I made the conscious decision to wear both a traditional watch on my left wrist and a smartwatch on my right wrist day in and day out. And I’m here to tell you with a straight face that this best-of-both-worlds solution has no downsides.

Most days, I wear a Fitbit Charge 5 on my right wrist and a traditional watch on my left. I agree with Di Benedetto, it’s the best of both worlds.

November 12, 2023

I'm @bjkraal@aus.social on Mastodon