Blog AF

It has been a crazy few months. Yesterday and today were rough days. Continue reading...

Living in San Francisco means having a wealth of cultural events to enjoy. Due to the large Latin population, the Día De Los Muertos celebration in The Mission was one I didn’t want to miss. Since most people in Costa Rica don’t celebrate the holiday, the traditions were unfamiliar to me, and it was surprising to see how openly people honor their loved ones.

I went with the intention to stay for ten minutes, and ended up walking around for almost two hours. More...

• Uncertainty Wednesday: Limits on Explanations (Turing and Gödel)
  Albert Wenger - Continuations
  

  Whether we like it or not, Turing and Gödel proved that there is irreducible uncertainty in the world, and when we build models and explanations, we need to keep that in mind.

• What else are we getting wrong?
  Dan Ghica
  

  I agree with Ghica. We need research into whether strong, static type systems help or hurt. When do we pick which? The issue is that any empirical study would have to control for training, use case, and many other variables. The end result would be to artificially recreate industry, which is basically impossible.

• I don't understand Python's Asyncio
  Armin Ronacher
  

  Me either.

• Want More Startups? Build a Better Safety Net
  Noah Smith - Bloomberg View
  

  The argument is easy, make it cheaper to take risks, and more people will take risks. Incentives.

• An Email History of the 2001 iPod Launch
  Steven Levy - Backchannel
  

  15 years went by quickly. I remember my first iPod, back in 2004. Hearing a bit of what the future looked like back then is worthwhile.

• The iPad: it’s for everyone else (2010)
  Ben Thompson - Stratechery
  

  History definitely rhymes! “…here’s the deal. Most people aren’t power users” is exactly what I’ve been thinking the past 5 days after the Mac release event. I am convinced that this generation of MBPs will sell well. Even if I am not buying one, the majority will.

• Paint Drip People
  Kent Beck
  

  Don’t be a generalist, and don’t be T-shaped. Be a paint drip.

• And Then They Came for Me...
  Mark Suster - Both Sides of The Table
  

  Not much needs to be said about this, but Mark Suster makes great arguments about why backing Trump is completely wrong.

• Behind the Mask: Scenes From Nicaragua's Sandinista Revolution
  James Estrin - The New York Times
  

  Growing up in Costa Rica, I somewhat lived with the after-effects of the revolution. A large portion of the population in Costa Rica is from Nicaragua (somewhere between 5%-10%, according to Wikipedia) and while I have heard some stories, and learned a bit about this in school, I feel like I should make an effort and learn the history of my own “other”.

• So Where Are We on the ‘S-curve’ for PC Devices
  a16z (podcast)
  

  The big question about technology today is who will be the leader for the next platform. As usual, great insights from the Andreessen Horowitz hallway.

So it’s a bit over a year since I wrote about writing. Has anything changed? Well, yes. I initially thought I’d be sharing many more blog posts about my own thoughts, but for some reason those all end up in half-baked Google docs. Hitting publish is hard. It is much easier to write one or two lines of commentary on someone else’s writing, than to produce any essay worth sharing. But there is a gray area right next to content creation: Continue reading...

Hannah’s grandma was in town this weekend and we drove up to Napa. The art, the wine, the landscapes, and the food, were all wonderful. We enjoyed our time there. More...