“We needed it”

The title is, of course, about the rain we’ve had yesterday and today, and are forecast to get over the next week. We’ve been trying to grow grass (and clover, etc) in a few areas of the backyard, and are cautiously optimistic that this run of weather will help it take hold. T just weeded and planted a section that’s been under tarp for a year—what a difference lifting that tarp makes! Our yard’s a chaotic mix of green, but it’s all good fun.

Thanks to all who wrote / messaged / called following last week’s newsletter. Stuff remains busy, for sure, but we’re staying afloat, and really appreciative of everyone who’s supporting us in various ways.

Today’s TODO list feels long as my arm, so straight on to the links:

• The stories (and implications of those stories) in “100 Objects #3: The Pension Files” brought both tears and chills. The twist at the end was incredibly heartwarming. (And the description of using these pension files to do a kind of network analysis of a historical community? Amazing!)
• As always, it’s helpful to hear from people living in Alberta about the separatist referendum (err, referendum on holding a separatist referendum). Tyler Dawson wrote The Republic of Alberta, charting the long history of separatist sentiment in the province; Dawson spoke with Paul Wells about current events.
• You don’t have to go far to hear stories or statistics of youth unemployment, but unless you’re in the job market, or know someone who is, it’s hard to understand just how demoralizing it is out there. These vignettes of British youth 18–24 unemployed for more than a year are unsettling. A stadium-sized job fair full of QR codes!? (In a conversation with Ryan this week, we pondered why there seems to be such generational differences in responding to the impact and influence of AI / LLMs. This story feels like a clue: for those already struggling to enter the job market, the decades-long impacts of disruption can feel much more acute than it might for someone with only 5–10 years left in their career.)
• Rachel Andrew questions where, how, or whether the productivity gains of AI / LLMs will appear: “If AI really was creating measurable improvements in productivity across entire organisations, wouldn’t we be seeing that data? How can we justify the cost (financial, environmental, and human) of AI, if the reality is a relatively small bump in productivity that could have happened by teaching more people to automate tasks using existing tools or simple coding?”
• In lighter AI / LLM news, “CrankGPT is a fully offline, off-the-grid AI box.” Imagine handing this to a child: “Here, you can ask any question you want, in different languages, and as long as you crank the dial enough, it’ll answer you.” Straight up science fiction—and yet, a delightful possibility that exists, for real, here in our world. (via Jason Kottke [via Robin Sloan])

Okay, let’s get away from the technobabble. (And apologies for that—but hopefully those AI / LLM links were genuinely more interesting or entertaining than not!)

• Have you ever heard of a “fit model”? A recent episode of Articles of Interest profiles this wild job in the fashion industry—wild not only for what fit models do, but for the concept of “sizing” in general. (Sizing has been on my mind this week, as I continue to struggle to buy most anything off-the-rack that fits nicely!)
• “The Hunt for Dark Breakfast” analyses breakfast foods based on their ratio of flour:milk:eggs, identifying breakfast food clusters and seeking ones never before enjoyed. Bananas (that’s a judgement, not an extra element to add to the matrix), but I loved it. (via Shawn Graham)

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas