You Didn’t Notice MP3 Is Now Free - The MP3 format, once a staple for digital audio, is now free due to expired licensing. However, its significance has diminished with the rise of streaming services and faster internet speeds, making file sizes less of a concern. While this change is notable for developers, the general population is largely unaffected by the shift away from MP3.
How I get ChatGPT and Claude to help me write and write like me
Writing with ChatGPT and ClaudeI’ve been using ChatGPT and Claude a lot for writing recently. I had a long conversation in the car ride between Ghent and Amsterdam with one of my old DevOps pals and they described their AI writing process. It’s best describe it as “layering.” Well, actually, it’s just how writing is always done: incrementally at first, and then iteratively until you run out of time. Here’s the technique.
Ten Trends That Shaped the Cloud Market in 2024 - ”Around 60% of cloud buyers told IDC’s 3Q24 Cloud Pulse Survey October 2024 that their business’ IT or digital infrastructure currently requires major transformation, and 82% said their cloud also required modernization.” // Good summary of a very expensive analyst report.
Gartner Survey Shows Supply Chain GenAI Productivity Gains at Individual Level, While Creating New Complications for Organizations - The robot summarizes what’s happening here with theory of constraints, clever! // Robot: “Alice now processes orders faster, but Bob and Charlie still work at their original pace. If Alice completes 20% more orders, but Bob can only arrange transport for the same number as before, then Alice’s extra work sits idle–no overall productivity gain for the team."
The Peter Principle - by Nicholas Decker - “Promotions are used as incentives, even if they don’t always match future competence."
Trumpian policy as cultural policy - Using culture-blitz to incrementally change society.
Hee-haw cars and slinky kinks
Today it’s all wastebook.
Garbage Chairs of Amsterdam, June Bug edition.Wastebook“gizmocrat” and ”gizmocrats,” new govt IT outsourcing term?
“Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was tweeting about guacamole prices over the weekend as Musk took over key functions of the government.” Two weeks in.
“Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk,” attributed to William Gibson.
“Tariffying,” The Economist.
“There’s probably a couple of kinks in that slinky,” Sen.
Links and fun finds for February 2rd, 2025
Hello. How are you today?
Wastebook"MAGA makeover' and “Texas Blowout.” US hair news from the UK.
“your dissimilar appearance to other social media influencers.” Aaron on my influencer aesthetics.
“Some people want something else, and that’s fine for them.” John Dickerson, Political Gabfest, Jan 30th, 2025.
”romantasy, which blends spicy sex scenes and romance tropes with supernatural elements, is not a fleeting trend." At which Rebecca Yarros excels.
"groyperfication, "John Ganz.
Clouded Judgement 1.30.25 - The Year of AI Applications - Finance-nerd explanation of the “this is actually great!” case for last week: “What’s happened over the last 12 months is the cost per API call (ie the cost for inference) for these models has plummeted. Open source models like Llama, R1 from DeepSeek, etc have all contributed to this. It’s become even more clear the model calls themselves are commoditizing quickly. And this is great! If the variable ‘COGS’ component of marginal API call approaches zero, many of the questions listed above start to go away. You don’t worry about your margins shrinking, changing the pricing doesn’t become a must, etc. This in turn leads to a LOT more experimenting with AI features / functionalities. The radius of complexity shrinks."