Links - Prepping, reframed
Also: new data on penalty shootouts, the history of ambulances, and more
Kaleidoscope Mind
Book reviews and other ideas from business, technology, real life, and more.
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Latest posts
Innovation often rhymes
Book review: The Box
When and how to buy a house
Here are my takes on two questions: whether to buy or rent, and how much to budget if you’re buying.
Links: AI will make our jobs harder
Also: when eight bucks is really five bucks, backing out vs pulling in, and more
The Apple doesn't fall far from the factory
*Apple in China* has a novel take that contradicts conventional wisdom on what both named parties get out of their relationship.
Quantifying multi-track novels
I've been obsessed with how the "multi-track" format adds a new dimension to storytelling. But are they really more common today?
52 things I learned in 2025
1 | About two-thirds of gendered animals in children’s stories are male. Frogs, wolves, and foxes are almost always male; birds, ducks and cats are the only common animals that are more often female.
Books I liked in 2025
What I enjoyed this year across genres.
Links: Relatable parenting
Also: ornithological trickery, more on coding productivity, and snails in offices
AI hasn't (yet) transformed coding productivity
A new paper estimates that programming productivity increased by only 2.4% compared to a pre-AI baseline. It relies on a number of assumptions that might not generalize, but it passes the smell test for me -- though maybe not for long.