I'm always interested in exposure to management advice from unconventional sources... and there's a leaked PDF floating around called "HOW TO SUCCEED IN MRBEAST PRODUCTION" which appears to be the onboarding document for new members of the MrBeast YouTube production company

It's 36 pages long, so I put together some of my own notes from reading it here: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Sep/15/how-to-succeed-in-mrbeast-production/

“It is harder to write code with $X.”

and

“It is easier to write CORRECT code with $X.”

is a pair of statements that comfortably can be true at the same time, making people uncomfortable because holding two thoughts at once is distressing.

This is a Toot about Rust, Python type hints, testable code in general, …

Ig Nobel prize awarded to a researcher whose work shows data on longevity is 'rotten from the inside out.'

The so-called Mediterranean diet may be pension fraud.

https://theconversation.com/the-data-on-extreme-human-ageing-is-rotten-from-the-inside-out-ig-nobel-winner-saul-justin-newman-239023

The thing about the ultra wealthy:

They can blow billions of dollars on the absolute most foolish nonsense, then throw billions more trying to rescue the thing when it starts to fail, then finally decide to cut their losses on it despite losing billions, or they cry for bailouts from the government to make them whole again for their terrible decisions.

And then, they still have enough wealth to do the same thing again and again and again and again.

They are literally people who will never actually be meaningfully impacted by the consequences of their actions. They can be the worst possible player at poker, but just keep buying in more and more and more until EVENTUALLY dumb luck makes it so they win because they're playing with an unlimited budget.

Giving GoToSocial a try out at @alpha. Anyone have any Fediverse frontend recommendations?

Why does Unicode not have a code point for the cool S?

[interior: Unicode consortium]

> Hey, should we have a glyph for a pointing finger?
Absolutely
> What about filled and outlined triangle?
Sure, but make them all different sizes.
> What about arrows?
Yeah, make tons but never a full set pointing in all directions. I'm talking seven 3D arrows but they all face right.
> Dominos?
Fuckin' all of them, man. Horizontal and vertical. Let's take that part seriously.

Lots of people seem to be confused. There are three very separable problems:

• Sending billionaires to Mars.
• Making it possible for humans to survive the trip to Mars.
• Making it possible for humans to survive on Mars.

The second two are in no way a prerequisite for the first.

ultra realistic colony builder on mars where no matter what you do everyone dies very quickly. the UI is full of future building upgrades that you can't unlock

Lovely article on one of the successes of government, which really go sorely underreported: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/michael-lewis-chris-marks-the-canary-who-is-government/

Today is the daaaaay

free advice to people starting a discord: you do not need more than two or three channels at most

you need the "everyone is in here / general / chat" channel, you need the "ostensibly nsfw but everyone talks about trauma" channel, and you need the slow moving "i took a selfie/look at my cat" channel

i am being a little facetious but i keep bumping into places with more channels than active users

you just need to keep all the activity in one place & only split things off when it's annoying

For those that don't know, I help run a giant women in technology slack group (more than 10,000 members!)

It's not just open to software and computer folks, however much that's the main group.

If you're a woman in biotech, in industrial science, in manufacturing or engineering, any technical field or technical line of business, you're welcome to join. It's very big tent about 'tech' and 'woman' both.

HMU for an invite

representation is important. thank you unicode team.

Instead of coding exercises maybe companies should ask candidates to go through the team’s toolchain setup docs and see how they get on. If they hit a brick wall and say “Actually, thanks but no” then they pass the interview.

At the end of the day a piece of wood or a bit of an assembly line doesn't usually have an opinion about the fact that you're weighing it.*

People are not like this. People notice when they are measured. Hence, we must think carefully about how we attempt to measure the experience of people and who gets into our sample because of it.

*pragmatically speaking -- physics & philosophy discussions about uncertainty principle for another day!!

The US finally takes aim at truck bloat https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/10/24241047/nhtsa-rule-pedestrian-safety-fmvss-suv-truck-design

I need to start a TikTok channel about being a trad programmer.

One that writes code without sprints, stories, epics, reviews, specs.

Just sit down with my keyboard and compiler and watch the build output scroll by.

God this is fucking incredible. Please take my word for it and read

https://modem.io/blog/blog-monetization/

How can I make fun of this, I would do exactly the same thing in this position