So much is left unfinished

Happy Wednesday!

Wait for the end to hear a soul-crushing story:

Stuff I’m Reading

Recently finished reading this book. It’s a quick read, only a 4.5 hour audiobook at 1x speed. I do find the audiobook duration more helpful when comparing book sizes. Narrators do read at different speeds, but this says 240 pages. It is a very breezy read.

You may know Noah Kagan as the maker of AppSumo, plus he’s made several successful companies. In this book, he sets up a framework really anybody can follow that gets rid of most of the doubt and anxiety that comes from launching a product. It’s quite inspirational, especially for two groups: 1) people who have never launched something before and 2) people who keep self sabotaging themselves. Probably 80% of people are in these two camps, so I highly recommend it. Even if you think you aren’t in camp 2, we often make choices in our business models and risk tolerance that do sabotage ourselves.

I don’t get a referral or anything, but I keep seeing ads that if you go through AppSumo you can get the book for $7 right now (which is half what I paid!)

It’s good to know there are people out there who are trying to do good things for society in the best way by challenging assumptions.

I think this part sum it up extremely well:

We must continually challenge our assumptions and foundations. Otherwise, we are doing things because they seem right, but aren’t necessarily the most effective. This is especially important when you are expending millions or billions of dollars to help mankind.

It’s not surprising that the internet is biased, nor that images are more biased than text. However, 4x more gender bias in images over text is a bit more than I would have expected. Let’s reframe it, though: text is 4x less gender biased than images 😉 the power of flipping stats.

Nah, I’m just joking. Though I think the more interesting fact is how these algorithms suppress certain content.

For all the React devs out there: Even though I likely won’t be able to use these things in my day job, React updates seem very promising this time around. Basically, it gets rid of lots of stuff we used to have to import and fewer things we need to consider upfront. React Compiler will handle the memoization, forwardRef is replaced with ref, replacing multiple hooks with use(Context/promise). It isn’t an exhaustive list, but this video goes into it a bit more. I think the React Compiler changes are the most interesting to me.

Behind the Scenes

My Top Threads

It’s okay to click the link and like/comment on them still if you didn’t see it the first time around 😉 

The amount of love and outpouring here was remarkable. I do want to delve deeper into what I meant here, but I think I’ll leave that for next week’s storytime 🙂 

You could interpret these results many ways, but I am taking it as “people have a variety of perspectives on AI”. My audience used to be more tech dominant, but I think we actually have a good mix of all types now, especially creatives. Somehow, neither side has come to hate me despite these differing views. What a balancing act. Rock and a hard place 😜 

These posts always seem to do well for me, and not really anyone else lol. I’ve seen many people copy this style of post. “CODE IS EASY BE GReAT”. But I think the reason the group we’ve cultivated likes this is because we all are constantly learning and trying to understand each other. Because of this focus on learning and growth mindset, it doesn’t matter whether we are creatives or programmers.

I constantly go back to basics to understand stuff. I make proof of concepts to check my knowledge and see where the edge cases are. If you think “experts” aren’t Googling 24/7 or using AI, you are in for a shock. There are very few true experts in the world, and sometimes being too deep in one area makes you miss the interconnections that provide true breakthroughs and “expertise”.

The real difference is the willingness to keep trying to figure things out, relentlessly.

Real Life

• Currently catching up with Love is Blind

• Went to see Drake in concert

• Trying to figure out where to live lol. Lease is up for renewal. Worst time of year. And during tax season 🤮 

Storytime

I sat at my desk, tapping my pen, trying to finish my last physic’s problem. Sighing, I decided to take a break and take a walk around the dorm.

It was freshmen year, and I lived on a floor with five other suites. Only one other door was propped open, so I gave a quick knock and entered. Nobody in the common room. I turned to leave when I heard a gurgling noise coming from their bathroom.

Each suite had a communal bathroom with multiple stalls in it. So I knocked, but got no answer again. I cracked the door and listened and I could definitely still hear a weird noise. I almost turned back, but the hairs on the back of my neck started tingling. The noise was nagging at me.

I pushed the door open a bit more and said, “hey, anybody in here?” No answer. I opened the door all the way and popped my head in. And finally, I spotted the source of the noise. 

The bathroom stall door ajar, a girl headfirst in a toilet full of puke. Drowning. I rushed forward and grabbed her out. I tiled her head back. She wasn’t choking, but she wasn’t responsive either. Completely passed out. I pushed her onto her side. I called 911 and we waited on the bathroom floor, covered and gross. They came and took her away. 

I found myself alone. Holy shit. Would she make it? What if I hadn’t taken a break? I went back to my empty room and looked at my chair pulled back from the desk. The unfinished physics problem sat taunting me.

So much is left unfinished.

Thanks for reading!

I’m having a lot of fun with this, but since a few of you did try to turn me into the po-po, I had to be less edgy 😛

Peace, and see you next Wednesday!

Lucas, your homie always and forever, with love and stuff