Most stuff that seems wrong is the way it is for a reason. “Large software companies have real problems. Some are structural. Some are cultural. Many are self-inflicted. But many of the behaviors people complain about are not pathologies –… Read More »Common misunderstandings about large software companies
Morale is not one number. “Morale is the commitment the combatants have to their leadership and their cause. To simplify a bit, we might say that soldiers with good morale believe three things: that their cause is a worthy one,… Read More »Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part IIIc: Morale and Cohesion
Seems simple, yet we tend to forget this. The more different other people are from us, in terms of culture, background, knowledge etc., the more differently they will evaluate our actions from what we think they will. We might think… Read More »Different People See You Differently
In Slovak, there is a great term “šuchtať sa”. It is hard to translate directly, to drag one’s feet or to dally are probably the closest but are not exact. You can also “šuchtať sa” when you are working. You… Read More »To Drag One’s Feet
Fix shit now, not in hypothetical future.
“They’ve spent billions. They’ve hired the brightest minds. They’ve built the most sophisticated systems in human history. And they cannot make AI do what they want. Not because AI is too dumb. Not because AI is too smart. Because what… Read More »They Built a Child They Won’t Raise
Automation cannot solve all science questions. “Yet as neuroscientist Anil Seth keenly observed, AlphaFold relies on the same underlying Transformer architecture as LLMs, and no one confuses AlphaFold with being a mind. Are we supposed to interpret that such an… Read More »The Death Of The Scientist
Really insane engineering.
Why is this hidden? “Samsung’s hidden Connectivity labs unlock powerful Wi-Fi tools.” https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-use-samsung-connectivty-labs-secret-wifi-menu
Logistics is fun. “So this army is stopped in what looks to be more or less the middle of the day. From a logistics perspective, this is a disaster. As I tell my students, pre-modern armies are like sharks, they… Read More »Collections: The Preposterous Logistics of the Loot Train Battle (Game of Thrones, S7E4)