Links

Awesome diagrams of the inside of undersea cables, and the boats and bots used to lay them.

lot of the typical “a computer made it so it can’t be art” takes in there that I really can’t get behind. Let them help make things!

THe daily work capacity estimate for different tasks is a great idea. Should do that.

Advice gathered by someone smarter than me. My top three of their picks:

• minor barriers aren’t minor
• remember what used to work, then do it again
• when choosing a life path, think about what contexts it puts you in

First two from Chris Sparks, third from Devon Zuegel

Perfectionism is more often about being afraid to be bad at things

I have watched this scores of times

Pretty damn hard to make things that last

Except the batteries on that rover are long dead. Many, if not all, of the plastic and paper insulators exposed to vacuum are now brittle and broken. All labels or painted surfaces are likely bleached white. Differential expansion during lunar daylight cycles has likely snapped a few things here and there too. Fifty years of exposure to static electric charges on the moon has put lunar dust in all sorts of places it doesn’t belong.

From CWT with Stewart Brand

A long writeup of a long show. Has convinced me to give it a look

More depressing covid takes. The final paragraph:

The countries that have stopped the virus, that is, cannot keep stopping the virus, because the experts say there is already too much of the virus circulating. China is a pandemic waiting to happen because the United States is wholeheartedly committed to being a pandemic. The American program, they say, will be the program for the entire world.

Not letting tools get in the way. And splitting up writing and editing.

1. Capture the idea.
2. Skeleton.
3. Draft.
4. Revise and ship.
5. Plus: avoiding a false sense of productivity.

Stick to simple processes and tools, don’t waste time overthinking.

So the typical writer today ends up with a pen and paper and a very narrow range of expressions: nothing beyond what can be stated with short sentences and short words and short, crisp thoughts. This is the ethos of the contemporary writing seminar, or most communication classes, even though any template that promises to induce good prose will also shove away any potential for expansive or artful prose—it is the realm of instructions, manuals, blueprints, and checklists. Where all sentences are trapped between guardrails. Where the purpose of writing instruction is to prevent errors. Where the writer begins every sentence with nothing more than thoughts of what to avoid.

Good writing isn’t static. Nor is it planned with precision. A sentence that vibrates just right is, instead, taking you along for a journey: these are the moments when you have temporary access to a writer’s mind. Good writing reveals all the muck, contradictions, and back-steps of actual thought

The 4kB of HTML used to render “Sponsored” on facebook posts

some very beautiful math drawings

Outdoor comparison of UE Hyperboom and 2.2 Minirig setup

Depressing read. In part because much of it won’t happen and we’ll keep flailing and yoyoing

Performance baseline has shifted quite far up (especially network) but targeted features are still quite far behind current

trolls continue to be terrible terrible people, and the legal system ill-equipped to deal with their nonsense

"The idea that decentralization of infrastructure equals decentralization of power is a trap

Some excellent and interesting questions to consider

Alex T on the need for innovation in America

On resource extraction in Canada. Apparently 75 percent of the world’s mining companies are based in Canada!

Also fun hover effect on links

1. The real problem is biased sharing. Even if everything is true, selective sharing will create a biased picture.

2. People can learn to spot fake news. The real problem is intellectual humility: getting them to trust & share real news. (4/12)

Had kinda sensed this trend, though some wild stats in there. There was also the turn to comfort music early in the pandemic.

old songs now represent 70% of the US music market.

The new music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

the 200 most popular tracks now account for less than 5% of total streams. It was twice that rate just three years ago

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact.

Have often wondered what the endpoint of this is. Or how much in impacted/unfluenced by sampling.

A far more elaborate setup than I am ready to look into at this time

Via HN

More notetaking tools. This time with drawings!

Can relate

The hydrogen is currently being made with coal but Energy Minister @AngusTaylorMP says the trade will be crucial in bringing down global emissions.

I’m sure it will, Angus

In-browser photo editing. Quite excellent

Have seen this a bit lately in logs. A lot of 3 or 4 year-old versions of Chrome out there

Me too, buddy. Me too

A glowing rec from Beautiful Audio