Honestly saying “I don’t know” is such a power move. If you think about it, it also creates a sympathetic bond with the audience because it’s highly likely many of THEM don’t know as well. After all, you’re the one on stage and they came to watch you speak.

Cake Pop Demon Hunters

Any game designers out there? Specifically focused on deck building games?

“It depends,” is almost always the answer.

The hilariousness and brilliantness of this website reinspires my confidence in what is possible with this whole internet thing ✅✅✅

RIP Tom. You were one of the first to show me that humor and truth were great friends. Thanks for everything.

He died in 2002, well before social media transformed everything, but I know Chuck Jones would have had an account just to repost stuff like this

The “personal FAQ because I’m being milkshake-ducked by AI slop for engagement” is going to be the new “link in bio,” isn’t it?

This is an interesting angle I hadn’t considered before. One of the reasons we converse with other people is to ground ourselves in reality. It’s hard to see the truth when we only have a single point of reference, we choose another perspective to orient ourselves.

It seems like a cruel irony that when a problem in a relationship is that one person isn’t listening, the most direct way to fix it revolves around telling that person “you’re not listening.” Which would work if …you know… that person were listening.

LLMs are averagers by nature. A below average writer? It’ll help. An above average writer? It will bring you down. It pushes all writing towards the average. On every dimension: originality, perspective, syntax… Tell it to be weirder? It’ll give you the most average weirdness you can think of.

Thoughtfulness, empathy, self-awareness, and the desire to express himself clearly No one is perfect, but I have to imagine that wherever this student is right now, he’s doing ok

If you were a skilled at plumbing, electrical, or HVAC and a good teacher (and enjoyed those things), you could make a really nice business charging a premium for fixing stuff and teaching people how to do it (or even just cogently explaining what you’re doing)

Streaming show review good

Alt text won't be able to do it justice, but the italicization in this section makes @chuckwendig.bsky.social's point best. Generative AI is not writing. If you want to see what writing looks like, check this out. This is writing with a capital WRITE.

One of the funny(?) things about all this is it FEELS new and different, but it is one of the oldest human truths: it’s about the journey, not the destination. Explored in every culture for all of human history. Of course “this time it’s different, no actually it’s not” is also one of those truths

I will never understand people who make things -- films, stories, art, music -- abdicating the making of those things in favor of a machine doing it. The joy is in creating something, not in avoiding the work of creation.

This jibes with my sense that most complaints about “AI” (whatever that is) are actually complaints about the effects of capitalism. The problem is they can’t consider any alternatives to capitalism (feels too big, don’t want to, don’t know any, etc) Btw this what the Luddites were on about too.

Be wary of taking parenting advice from anyone, esp someone on the internet, but @visakanv.com is speaking to the “Not sure I’m ready” question. Whatever you think your limitations are, you’re probably wrong. Parenting shows you reserves of strength, grace, and patience you didn’t know you had.

Someone who’s lived in Chicago for a few years glancing up at any random street address

Improvement fixes and bugs

This is a cognitive bias turducken. False consensus wrapped inside attentional bias wrapped inside the backfire effect wrapped inside the Semmelweis effect wrapped inside naïve realism wrapped inside the third-person effect. That it pretty accurately describes how many people feel says a lot.

Word out with your nerd out

I think I found something by that was made in a lab specifically to appeal to @sheilakathleen.bsky.social m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYta...

Corollary: you finding out about a thing ≠ no one knows about a thing

Not always, but highly likely to be true: There are things that set you apart as a kid or teen, things that you are probably tried to hide or suppress. Those very things (not a variant, the thing itself) will be the source a disproportionate % of the good in your life as an adult.

It’s worth considering what a tragic love story Unstoppable Force and Immoveable Object are. The only other thing in the universe that could possible understand them is each other. People always talk about what would happen if they met. And yet it is cosmologically impossible for them to do so.

Bingo. You COULD label students responding to a meaningless, rote task by making it simpler and more efficient as “cheating.” Although a completely different, entirely logical response would be to ask what an assignment would look like that imbued them with meaning and creativity

It’s subtle, but has anyone else noticed that the Mediterranean is now a lake?

Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie 24 Angry Men

Mood

Zuck: the average American has three friends

“I dont knowe whomst thou are. I dont knowe whatte thou wants. If ye are looking for ransomme I can telle thee I dont have coinne, but what I do have are a very partikular sette of skilles.”

Some people want to do a thing and other people want to be a person who does a thing. These are 2 fundamentally different goals, but at first glance, the people who pursue them seem very similar. Once I began trying to discern the difference, the world started making a whole lot more sense.

What’s the opposite of a “midlife crisis?”

You do not need an algorithm to surface the best stuff. If it is the right post for you, it will find you all on its own.

I am just as bad as everyone else when it comes to overusing acronyms, but I find it really helpful to think of them as short-term predatory loans for understanding instead of money. Sure present-you gets a short-term benefit, but future-you (and society more broadly) is going to regret it more.

Of all the perspectives you will read about “how to adapt to the rise of AI,” this is the most useful, practical, and achievable 👇 it’s one of the least flashy and satisfying strategies , so most people won’t do it… (which also makes it one of the best strategies)

I have a joke about the fall of Troy, but no actually it’s about horses. 🐴

i'm sorry or you're welcome

Hey siri. End human suffering. Sure thing…ending humans…

Agency

Here's a list of writers/talkers that I've found helpful. Some have books, all write/talk on the internet for free so you can get a taste for whether it resonates. world.hey.com/johnstokvis/...

Apropos of nothing, Fidelity did a study of investment strategies between 2003 and 2013. The ones who did the best were the ones who forgot they had a Fidelity account. www.businessinsider.com/forgetful-in...

March 2025: 4 Things I learned (🧊, 🍫, 🐺, 🧙‍♀️) world.hey.com/johnstokvis/...

Most software interfaces do something close to this, highlighting one choice with a different color However, there's a subtle distinction: - the software version signifies what the software maker wants you to do - the real world version signifies what others in your situation have done

There are many ways that school teaches us lessons that we must un-learn in adult life. One it nails is “you will likely be in an environment that will try to smother the passion and creativity that will lead to success and 2 ways to counter that are: - find an advocate - do your own thing”

<whispering, barely audible even to people right next to me who are listening> “There is no how.”