Category Archives: Links

Links from the past weeks 

Links from the past weeks 

Links from the past weeks

Links from the past weeks 

  • Downs–Thomson paradox

    The equilibrium speed of car traffic on a road network is determined by the average door-to-door speed of equivalent journeys taken by public transport; improvements in the road network will not reduce congestion and improvements in the road network can make congestion worse if the improvements make public transport more inconvenient or if they cause disinvestment in the public transport system.



  • GPT models are actually reasoning engines not knowledge databases

    “Even though our AI models were trained by reading the whole internet, that training mostly enhances their reasoning abilities not how much they know. And so, the performance of today’s AI models is constrained by their lack of knowledge.”



  • Cang Lan Jue is a Visual Feast inspired by Hades & Persephone

    I was recommended to watch this, and did not expect the high level of CGI wizardry. It was a visual treat, and a break from the overly sexualised storylines you get from most other things one watches on Netflix. Reminds me of the shows we watched as children, but with much better computer graphics.



  • Why EY and its rivals may eventually break up, after all

    Because the audit business is in conflict with the consulting/ advice business. Amazing how the conflict of interests rules don’t apply to some professions.



  • To fend off creepy guys online, Chinese women gather around ‘baby solid food’

    The hashtag, associated with parenting, means the algorithm pushes the content mainly to women. I am guessing there will be various other hashtags one has to use to get away from creeps.



  • I was today years old when I learned about asparagus pee. (I can’t smell it.)



  • The Benner Cycle Predicts 100+ Years of Market Movement

    Someone once told me about 11-year cycle, but in recent years, the cycles are much harder to interpret.



  • The Dubious Wisdom of Smart Brevity

    “Personally, I cannot imagine sending a note with the brusque subject line “our chief of staff quit.” I suspect this is a gender thing: I spent much of my early professional years inserting exclamations into e-mails so as not to sound like a stone-hearted ice witch.”

    We can all learn to write more concisely, but the ideology behind Smart Brevity may not be so universal, as this writer eloquently explains: “Smart Brevity is essentially a book about how to write a good e-mail. (And honestly it probably could have been a long e-mail.)”



Links from the past weeks

Links from the past weeks 

  • We started watching Girls5eva and “New York Lonely Boy” is an awesome song.



  • Quirky slides from Softbank’s 2020 earnings call

    Slides in my industry are umm, more academic but I am always up for inspiration.



  • I almost bought Marcin Wichary’s book on keyboards, but instead, I soothed myself with a 2018 article he wrote: Bigger in Japan.


    (The Kickstarter page is here.)



  • After reading this MacStories piece about how there is a remake of the classic version of Angry Birds, I went and paid my $0.99.

    It is a simple game and very enjoyable, but it was made stupid in later years, when it became saddled with mechanisms aimed to get you to make recurring in-app purchases.



  • Reading The Art of War, and bemoaning the lack of the Chinese text in my copy. Not that being able to read the characters mean you understand the text, but well, I would like to refer to it and pretend my education hasn’t been wasted.



  • Dow said it was recycling our shoes. We found them at an Indonesian flea market


    I really love this piece of journalism. Not so great for those involved in the Singaporean project.



  • This is a little against my desire to stop using music as background, but I read somewhere about slow radio and went looking for the BBC Radio podcast.



  • Apparently, Chinese youths are referring to themselves as rats. It is a self-deprecating way to refer to themselves while describing their struggles. The article also touches on other memes, and includes the Chinese characters and Hanyuan pinyin to help one understand the wordplay.



  • Another day, another artificial sweetener to be careful about.



Links from the past weeks

Links from the past weeks

  • Harry Styles is very likeable, and while the song’s merits can be debated, the music video for As It Was is a work of art. I had to find out where it was filmed.



  • I was trying the Matter app, and I enjoyed Kieran Setiya’s piece titled What’s the use of hope?

    I like the Matter app’s interface, and the play audio function was great. It was free to try before 15 January 2023; the subscription is US$59.99 per year. I have been a user of Reeder, and I have flirted with Instapaper and Pocket previously but I’ve usually found that I do not use read-later apps that much. Reeder does have a read-later function, but I tend to not use it. I am now also trying out Anybox, which I am treating as a bookmark manager, but it also has a download/ read-later function. At this moment, while the Anybox interface makes things nicer to look at, given my needs (not much), I might just stick to Pinboard since the repository function is the main point for me (I paid a one-time fee previously, before the site changed to a monthly fee model). So I will use Pinboard + Reeder + Apple Notes.



  • The mac mini M2 is finally out. The lowest end model is cheaper than the M1 version. Such a sweet little box.



  • Why You Really Shouldn’t Spend a Lot on a Standing Desk

    This article’s title amused me. We are there already? I haven’t gotten a standing desk, because I’d have to remove from my just-the-right-size apartment our trusty bludot Strut desk. I had considered converters but could not stand the idea of my monitor & keyboard & mouse shuddering as they were being moved up/down. Also, a large converter that would fit a monitor + keyboard seem to be such an ugly mammoth atop the desk. And yes, the “solution” is the same as before standing desks came into fashion – get up, take a walk.



  • Ten Percent Happier has a course they call “The Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness”. I enjoy the format, where you watch a short video before the meditation session. Roshi Joan leads the meditation sessions, and she has a very calming presence.




  • We started watching The Chase, a trivia game show, and of course, I had to find out more about the Chasers. Buzzy is such a fun presence and Victoria Groce was so good, I thought she was an actor who was supplied the answers.



Links from the past weeks

Links from the past weeks

  • If Books Could Kill – Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers
    Michael Hobbs asked what is the most harmful airport book, and following up on this interesting question, he does a podcast about Malcolm Gladwell’s very popular book. It is worth a listen.
    I looked through my Goodreads and I’ve read 4 of Gladwell’s books, giving them around 3 stars each. Gladwell’s books had its attraction. He was able to write about things in an interesting way. But as the podcast shows, some basic fact-checking might bring some interesting finds!



  • Another podcast: Is pay transparency good?
    Apparently not always – because you need to factor in equal increase for all workers and therefore bosses will make increments smaller and/or be more cautious about any increase.



  • Word Persons and Web Persons
    In the wake of the Twitter exodus, we have all read pieces on the resurgence of blogging, but I particularly enjoyed this one by Roy Tang.



  • What really matters.
    The economy and the markets are giving people pause these days. It is good to spend some time thinking about what really matters, and calm yourself.



  • I watched a documentary on Netflix called Generation Wealth. I stayed mostly because of the great visuals. Lauren Greenfield’s photographs are gorgeous. This peek into extreme wealth is fascinating but it also induces a feeling of repulsiveness. I also noted that Greenfield and her family are featured quite a bit in this show. Does this make the film better or worse? Overall, I would still recommend a watch.



  • A reminder to turn gratitude into grace.