Category: What I’m reading

Back from my friend’s wedding in Santa Cruz. It was a very picturesque event taking place in a grove of conifers on top of a mountain. The crowd enjoyed themselves and the bride and groom looked amazing. Glad to have been a part of it!

You’d think we might be taking it easy after a wedding weekend, but we’re off again this Wednesday for Sydney’s birthday in Disneyland. I’ve never gone for the full ride experience at a Disney park, so there will be a lot of new experiences for me. I’m bringing the camera down with us too so expect a Mickey-Minnie ears picture with the two of us next week.

Anyway, here are the links:

• Elon Musk admits Tesla is struggling with Model 3 production.
• America’s corporations learn to target the 26-year-old Millennial.
• White House drives a hard bargain for ‘Dreamers’ deal.
• Facebook tries, fails for excellence in game-playing AI.
• Interactive sorting algorithm demo.
• A look into the demographics of billionaires.

Heading into a busy two weeks. Later this week I’ll be attending a wedding and the week after that is Syndey’s birthday. Hopefully I’ll still get a chance to post, but if not it might be two weeks before I get another post out.

In other news, Las Vegas suffered a horrible attack last week leaving more dead than the Pulse nightclub shooting. I’ll leave it to the pundits to talk about policy, but I will say this: it’s unacceptable that at this point we can set our calendars by the most recent mass shooting in this country. Something has to change.

Anyway, here are the links:

• The OKCupid tech blog lays out their new A/B test for increasing the number of mutual matches.
• A guide to designing a “perfect” Elasticsearch cluster.
• A visual introduction to compression.
• Potential for natural evaporation as a reliable renewable energy resource.
• An attack in Las Vegas leaves over 50 dead and over 500 injured.
• Michael Pettis gives a talk about the state of the Chinese economy before the party congress.

You might notice the layout for the blog has changed. When I set up this blog, I really just wanted a simple, one-column, black-on-white background, but of course WordPress wants to peddle a bunch of busy, trendy themes at me. After digging for a bit last night, I finally found something that will hold me over until I find something even simpler.

What else is going on? Well, a busy few weeks are about to sweep in, which means I’ll probably be incommunicado again. Chelsea beat Atletico Madrid in the Champions League yesterday in a really great match. A few cry from Mourinho parking the bus against every team in Europe. Right now I feel like it’s not even worth touching topics like North Korea, Equifax, healthcare, etc since it’s pretty clear now nothing is going to happen on either of these fronts for a while.

Anyway, here are the links:

• China sets rules for automakers to produce alternative-energy vehicles by 2019.
• Some CEO spent $200k on therapy, pills, and biometrics to improve his health.
• An introduction to logging in Python.
• New Mexico’s new science educational guidelines omit mentions of climate change, evolution, and the age of the Earth.
• Trump’s anti-regulation policy is beginning to take effect.
• Blackhat researchers have shown how to turn web-connected carwashes into death traps.

It’s been a while. Currently getting ready for Halloween; I have 3 different faux leather jackets from Amazon sitting around my apartment for my Mad Max outfit. Honestly, I’ll probably have to send all three back, but I’m trying to be proactive and not wait til the last week to get this all done. This week I’m looking forward to an internal developer conference we’re having at work and not much else. I saw IT about a week back and really enjoyed myself. Next up is Mother, which I heard did just awful.

Anyway, here are the links:

• Yelp’s approach to diversity in hiring.
• A breakdown of academic performance of boys and girls in the Middle East.
• The Ariane 5 Disaster.
• North Korea claims the US has declared war.
• Is Star Trek’s transporter a suicide booth?
• Iraqi Kurds cast a vote for independence despite threats of violence.

Been on the road for basically two weeks straight for a variety of reasons, but I have some interesting articles worth sharing for today. Also worth noting is that today marks the 16th year since the 9/11 attacks. Probably no other event besides the collapse of the Berlin Wall has had such an impact on our world and I imagine we’ll be living with the consequences for a very long time. It’s worth taking a moment to reflect how much our lives have been impacted and how we can do better in the future.

Anyway, here are the links:

• A new blog post on GDP overstatement by prof Michael Pettis.
• A mysterious 15th Century manuscript is decoded as a women’s health guide.
• The Guardian explores how Britain’s aristocracy still thrive to this day.
• Java 9 will not receive long-term support.
• China moves to shut down Bitcoin exchanges.
• NYTimes article covering the current status of Irma and the damages to Florida.

Summer’s almost over and I’ll be spending the long weekend in Boston visiting family. Not much else to say this week. The links are little more tech-focused this week, but if you’re not interested in that, the article on gerrymandering is very timely.

Anyway, here are the links:

• India and Pakistan are hit by malware potentially supported by a state actor.
• Programmer, developer, engineer; what’s your preferred title?
• Google takes out a swath of Japanese internet access with a simple configuration error.
• How DeepMind created its game-playing AI.
• Storing secrets in AWS using Parameter Store.
• The topic of gerrymandering is addressed…again.

Not much to say. Spending some time in Sacramento this weekend and then Boston later next week. I found some interesting links this week, so if you usually only read one or two, I suggest at least checking out all of them this weekend. Personally, I’m enjoying these new graphic-driven articles by the New York Times; you’ll find that style in the first link this week!

Anyway, here are the links:

• Alaska’s permafrost is thawing; the NYTimes reports on how the landscape will change.
• How to enable 3-finger drag for windows in OS X.
• China’s “Great Cannon”, inserting malware to create DDOS attacks.
• “Superdosing” with B12 and broader B-vitamins linked with increasing cancer risks.
• Conviction of Samsung’s heir leads to a power vacuum at the top.
• Greater accessibility through “dark themes” on websites and applications.

Another dramatic week in global affairs. The US Navy 7th fleet suffered another accidental collision, which prompted questions of protocol and potential cyber sabotage of the vessels. Domestically, the US is recovering from a fatal clash of protestors in Virginia and bracing itself for more far-right demonstrations around the country. Locally, Sydney and I went out to see Allie X in concert. It was a small venue, but she gave a good performance and basically played all her best songs.

Anyway, here are the links:

• Understanding asymmetrical numeral systems in light of Google’s attempt to patent.
• A post on interviews containing links to helpful interview prep sites.
• Can North Korea hit the United States with a nuclear ICBM?
• Part 1 of 2 of the fall of Yugoslavia on YouTube.
• The US withholds aid money from Egypt in response to perceived human rights violations on the part of the Egyptian government.
• The US Navy relieves the commander of the US 7th fleet, based out of Yokosuka, after multiple collisions involving 7th fleet vessels.

I read most of these earlier in the week, but thought I should still post this one. Didn’t make any plans for the eclipse in Oregon this week, but still had a fun weekend around SF. Sydney and I took Saturday to pick up the car from the shop, but before that we hit up SF MOMA and managed to take same pictures. Today we remembered that Civic Center has a farmers week on the weekends, so we went over and bought our groceries for the week. Shocking that the farmers market has green onions and Safeway doesn’t (my expose on Safeway’s awful business is forthcoming).

Anyway, here are the links:

• More Confederate monuments are coming down around the country.
• Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s controversial advisor, leaves the White House.
• SF elections in District 6 could indicate the direction the city will take towards homelessness and affordable housing.
• New Slack-bot, Pr Police, keeps track of pull requests awaiting review in GitHub.
• The Economist sums up the latest vehicular terror attack in Europe.
• The NY Fed branch raises it’s prospects for US 3rd quarter GDP.

I’ve finally picked up some steam getting things done at home. I’ve been giving Github’s project management product a try for my current side project and it’s useful enough so far. What I really want is the ability to render project details (for instance, the kanban board) on my repository’s homepage for quick reference.

So far, using Github for managing this project has worked out well. My attention is constantly split across so many topics, I find it helpful to write things down into discrete issues and milestones that help remind me of the project status. I know a lot of people just prefer to wing it or keep things loosely organized, but if the progress keeps up on this project, I might have a good blog post on self-motivation and organization.

Anyway, here are the links:

• More Southern politicians begin the process of removing Confederate statues.
• A potential solution of the P versus NP problem.
• Designing microservices with failure in mind.
• Interactive review of species threatened offshore energy exploration.
• Is America headed for a Civil War? From the New Yorker.
• After a number of CEOs resign, Trump disbands his CEO advisory board.