Author: Ben Brooks

Emma Martinho-Truswell:

When the work of public servants can be done in less time, a government might reduce its staff numbers, and return money saved to taxpayers — and I am sure that some governments will pursue that option. But it’s not necessarily the one I would recommend. Governments could instead choose to invest in the quality of its services. They can re-employ workers’ time towards more rewarding work that requires the lateral thinking, empathy, and creativity — all things at which humans continue to outperform even the most sophisticated AI program.

Really nice update to the Rucker backpack. However, that’s not why I am posting about it — shit I didn’t even use my affiliate link on that. As part of the redesign, GORUCK filmed a 2 minute video, which can be found on the linked page, and it explains the Rucker redesign. But it actually doesn’t. It left me wondering why I should care beyond it being new. That video was of GORUCK’s President Blayne Smith giving a focused look at the bag.

Smith is excellent at direct, on script, style communication. It shows why he is president, but also, he didn’t do a good job selling the bag. This lead to a 20+ minute video (Warning that link is to a Reddit link to the damned Facebook video, which somehow I was able to watch through Pocket for reasons I don’t understand.) from Jason McCarthy, the founder of GORUCK, to explain the same bag.

At the end of the 20 minute video — and yeah I watched the entire thing — I wanted a new Rucker. Because even though Jason (I don’t know him, but he seems to go by that in the community and not Mr. McCarthy) rambles quite a bit and lacks focus, he holds a much better clarity about the product itself. That is: he sold the product, and never once made me feel like “when’s this video going to end”.

So I’m linking to these two videos as a tool for you. When you are trying to sell your product or yourself: which video are you?

Steve Jobs was a salesman, but in a different way than Jason above. Cook is not, he’s direct and sincere, but he isn’t going to get you excited, which is exactly why he hands off the presentations to people he hopes can get buyers excited.

Zeynep Tufekci:

It’s important to realize that, in using these dark posts, the Trump campaign wasn’t deviantly weaponizing an innocent tool. It was simply using Facebook exactly as it was designed to be used. The campaign did it cheaply, with Facebook staffers assisting right there in the office, as the tech company does for most large advertisers and political campaigns. Who cares where the speech comes from or what it does, as long as people see the ads? The rest is not Facebook’s department.

Almost like these tools are the assault weapons used by politicians and advertisers.

A few people have asked me this question since I recommend both. I did some testing over at EDW.

Ben Yagoda, writing about why reviewers are often so off base:

Here’s the heart of the problem: The set of critics’ and audiences’ interests do not perfectly overlap but rather form a Venn diagram. In the audience circle, the pressing question is, “Should I spend some number of the dollars I have to my name and the hours I have left on Earth on this thing?” Critics get in for free and by definition have to read or watch or listen to whatever’s next up. So their circle is filled with relativistic questions about craft and originality and wallet quality and the often unhelpfully general “Is it good?” (Some of them even have an idea of what they mean by “good”; the rest are winging it.)

I loved this article because in my head it’s the crux of the problem with most review sites. I try very hard to answer the questions I would want to know about something before I bought it, which is why eschew bullshit like scoring. The above also perfectly encapsulates why sites like The Verge, or Carryology fail so miserably at writing helpful reviews. I’ve sent more backpacks back to companies than I care to think about because they are bad, and rather than contort myself to talk about the x thing that bag gets right, I move on. I am, however, by no means perfect.

Great recommendation from @hisaac on this DM only Twitter app. I started using it this morning and it’s just what I needed: access to the only useable part of Twitter.

Maya Kosoff:

Regardless of whether its justification is sound, the fact remains that Twitter is beholden to Trump, and it will continue to make up rules that accommodate his erratic behavior.

That’s the kind of shit that would keep me up at night.

Just finished this book, and while some elements feel a bit dated (it was published in 2015), it offers a good comprehensive look at what humans face at some point in the future as machines get better at doing things.

This is a terrible guide from Wirecutter, and their top pick — hell most of their picks, are a waste of your money. Bad guide, even for “most people.” I’m not alone in thinking this either.