AI isn't useless. But is it worth it? 0:00/21:51 Listen to a voiceover of this post, download the recording for later, or subscribe to the feed in your podcast app. As someone known for my criticism o

In psychology, the word ‘ heuristic ’ refers to a kind of mental shortcut, an equivalency that people make in order to assist with a rapid evaluation or decision. A typical heuristic might be a simpli

Sarah Jeong @Sarah Jeong I’ve had a really good time on here. I’ve also had a really bad time on here lol 8:47 PM · Nov 17, 2022 he The first tweet was already unsettling. It was a composite image of

Opinion Lydia Polgreen There Is No Way to Live a Life Without Regret By Opinion Columnist Dec. 1, 2023 When I was in sixth grade, I made a decision that changed the course of my life. I decided not to

U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic Taylor Swift onstage during her Eras Tour at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif, on July 28. Credit... Philip M

Christiane Amanpour has reported all over the world, so she recognizes a democracy on the brink when she sees one. Last week, as she celebrated her 40 years at CNN, she issued a challenge to her fello

Adjust Share When I was a kid, in the touch-tone era in the Midwest, I often dialed, for no real reason, the “time lady”—an actress named Jane Barbe, it turns out—who would announce, with prim

I n my defence, it was never my intent to write about it. I did not have time. No one asked me to. And several people strongly cautioned against it. Not now – not with the literal and figurative fires

Photo by Astemir Almov on Unsplash “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.” — Ernest Hemingway What is the greatest city on Earth? If you answered “New Y

In 2015, Google hatched a plan to save the mobile web by effectively taking it over. And for a while, the media industry had practically no choice but to play along. It began on a cheery October morni

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we rely on metaphor, as we always do when dealing with something new and unfamiliar. Metaphors are, by their nature, imperfect, but we still need to choose

U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic The Wide-Angle Vision, and Legacy, of bell hooks The pioneering feminist scholar, who died this week, wrote about

Photo: Ian Allen This article was featured in One Great Story , New York ’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. Nobody likes an I-told-you-so. But before Microsoft’s Bin

dominant answer: 33. Partly bc age of Jesus at crucifixion. But I think partly bc it feels like a kind of peak for the combined vigor-maturity index.” The combined vigor-­maturity index: Yes! Richard was replying to me on Twitter, where I’d tossed out my query to the crowd: “How old are you in your…

Cambrian Governance Andrew Bourke’s Principles of Social Evolution opens on the story of a “ scientifically curious protozoan ” (protozoans are single-celled organisms) from half a billion years ago,

Illustration: Zohar Lazar for New York Magazine I. Donald Trump was calling from Mar-a-Lago. It was a Monday afternoon in the middle of December. He was at his desk in what is known as 45 Office, a ro

I’m just so angry . It’s been boiling and bubbling (and toiling and troubling) for awhile now. Not just since a spoilt, sadistic emerald heir stole—and yes, I am using that word; I’m using it delibera

Composition X, Kandinsky Recently, I’ve come to the realization that much of what we do in modern software development is not true software engineering. We spend the majority of our days trying to con

It’s been an infuriating mystery to me for a long time now: Why aren’t mainstream political journalists taking a more aggressive approach to explaining the threat to democracy? Especially with such a

Content Warning: The story told here includes references to suicide and child abuse, though the abuse is not graphically described. Early one fall morning in 2017, in a middle-class suburb on the outs

xoxo lead Sometimes I hate the Internet. Then I remember that I love the Internet. In Portland last weekend, the first-ever XOXO Festival offered a heartwarming affirmation for 2012: despite the noise

Tools for solving problems in a wide range of fields 12 min read · Jul 11, 2022 -- There are a couple of “standard spiels” I have been giving my teams for decades at this point; I’m working on writing

“I think people were surprised by the amount of resonance,” says Jodie Foster, who plays Ellie Arroway in Contact , of the movie’s reception. “We used to do that. We used to make movies that were reso

Published in Netflix TechBlog · 8 min read · Sep 3, 2021 -- Background At Netflix, we heavily use gRPC for the purpose of backend to backend communication. When we process a request it is often benefi

It does. It remains the best, accessible essay I know of that *explains* the basics without sacrificing complexity and remains explanatory and consistent with existing, large-scale real life data. I constantly get feedback on how useful it is. Read here: https://t.co/UXWhg6X0mI…

I've said before that staff engineers should be thinking at least a year ahead. Managers should too. In fact, anyone who's senior should have a robust belief in the future. 2023 Conferences & Events E

Ezra Klein What America Needs Is a Liberalism That Builds May 29, 2022 By Opinion Columnist Early in Joe Biden’s presidency, Felicia Wong, the president of the liberal Roosevelt Institute, told me tha

You know that thing where everyone on a software engineering team turns up and just writes code for eight hours a day and then later the project is successful? No you don't. Projects don’t work like t

Despite being hyped in expensive Super Bowl ads , cryptocurrency is now having a difficult moment. As the New York Times reports , “the crypto world went into a full meltdown this week in a sell-off t

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat representing parts of Queens and the Bronx (including Rikers Island), quickly became the most prominent progressive voice in the House of Representatives after she

(Ruffians: I warn you this is quite long. You may have to click at the bottom of the email to access the whole thing). A friend of mine, a screenwriter in New York, believes Get Back has a catalytic e

Zeynep Tufekci After a Pandemic Failure, the U.S. Needs a New Public Spirit Nov. 18, 2021 Credit... Hudson Christie By Opinion Columnist No one knows when the pandemic will end. But the worst of it ma

Edgar helps Netflix teams troubleshoot distributed systems efficiently with the help of a summarized presentation of request tracing, logs, analysis, and metadata. Published in Netflix TechBlog · 14 m