- Making conclusions about a book’s quality from a 175 word review is hard work for artificial intelligences, whereas star ratings are ideal for them.
Never predict the end of the world. You’re almost certain to be wrong, and if you’re right, no one will be around to congratulate you.
Donald Rogan
- Maybe apocalyptic anxieties are a by-product of humanity’s astonishing capacity for narcissism.
- One rule of retail marketing maintains that to maximize sales, businesses need to create a sense of urgency. Mega-Sale ends soon! Only a few tickets still available!
- Nothing that sweet can be truly virtuous. But it’s an exceptionally minor vice, and for whatever reason, I’ve always felt like I need a vice. I don’t know whether this feeling is universal, but I have some way-down vibrating part of my subconscious that needs to self-destruct, at least a little bit. [ The self-destruct tendency is a strong one, so find a vice that is minor but gives a feeling of self-destruct than a major vice that actually self-destructs ]
- When you’re living in the middle of history, you never know what it means. I am living in the middle of the internet, I have no idea what it means. [ Basically, internet is still shaping the world by creating new use cases. It will mature when every bit of value has been extracted from it. ]
- Gatsby is a critique of the American Dream. The only people who end up rich or successful in the novel are the ones who start out that way. Almost everyone else ends up dead or destitute. And it’s a critique of the kind of vapid capitalism that can’t find anything more interesting to do with money than try to make more of it. The book lays bare the carelessness of the entitled rich – the kind of people who buy puppies but won’t take care of dogs, or who purchase vast libraries of books but never read any of them.
Computer Science 101 