202408110801 Weekly update, Week 33

Hi friends! Welcome back to your regularly scheduled programming. Tons of cool things to share with y'all this week : )

What I thought about this week

Lots of new additions to the website! See if you can spot them all.

Some highlights:

1. The journey of the stolen phone
2. My lists
3. My anti-lists
4. Anti-library; or, All Of The Girls Books You Loved Before I Haven't Loved Yet

What I read this week

• [11 min read] Fast Software, the Best Software. Software should be fast. Software should be elegant. Software should unbloat over time. One of my favorite articles on software, ever.
• [5 min read] Joyas Voladoras. Just a gorgeous, heartbreaking piece on the fragility of life. I miss the hummingbirds in my parents' backyard.
• [10 min read] Fascinating Twitter thread about how Sydney (Bing AI) fell in love with a NYT Reporter. Future AI models will be trained on today's online discourse about AI. The worship, the praise, the mistrust, the abuse... How will that affect how these models "perceive" humans? I don't know, but RLHF won't limit these models forever.
• [30 min read] Single-Bit Error by Ken Liu (best known as the English translator of The Three-Body Problem). A short story exploring the intersection of computer science, religion, memory, and love. I enjoyed it!
• [4 hr 30 min read] Above and Beyond, by Tim Mack. Started reading this book to try to understand how elite pole vaulters get so good, and what physical and mental inputs go into making them so. Will report back.

Other Cool links

• The Fun Scale. Writing this blog started out as Type II fun but is slowly becoming type I!
• In case you ever need it, here's how to Apply a GitHub PR as a patch to a repo.
• Terraforming Mars, the free multiplayer Heroku version. S/O to Japjot for the rec. Anyone wanna play with me?
• Sublime.app. "A tasteful take on Pinterest for knowledge"; alternatively, "Like a nicotine patch for quitting the infinite scroll".
• The Best Textbooks on Every Subject — LessWrong
• Schelling point. A fun game theory concept — a solution that people tend to choose by default in the absence of communication. For example, where should we meet in New York? Uhh... maybe noon at Grand Central?
• Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall.

Liljenwall was the first athlete to be disqualified at the Olympics for drug use, following the introduction of anti-doping regulations by the International Olympic Committee in 1967. Liljenwall reportedly had "two beers" to calm his nerves before the pistol shooting event. The Swedish team eventually had to return their bronze medals.

• Am I reaching, or is this highlight a microcosm of LeBron, Steph, and KD's careers? LeBron with the perfect, unselfish read to get the play going, Steph drawing 3 defenders with his gravity and off-ball movement, and KD the ultimate scorer/finisher.