Why Stories Make You Smarter Than Self-Help Books by Joan Westenberg

The young read fiction because they haven't yet learned to be embarrassed by imagination. The genuinely brilliant read fiction because they've looped back around to understanding that pure information transfer is the least interesting thing a book can do. But there's a vast middle ground of people who have just enough education to feel insecure about it, and these folks read non-fiction exclusively. They read because they love being seen learning, more than they love the process of it. I know. I’ve been one of ‘em, at various points in my life.

My reading pattern or the pattern I try to implement is one non-fiction book, followed by a fiction book and so on. I find fiction books work better with audio format and since most of my reading is that, I think I will dip more in that pool.

Maybe.

Code like a surgeon by Geoffrey Litt

A lot of the “secondary” tasks are “grunt work”, not the most intellectually fulfilling or creative part of the work. I have a strong preference for teams where everyone shares the grunt work; I hate the idea of giving all the grunt work to some lower-status members of the team. Yes, junior members will often have more grunt work, but they should also be given many interesting tasks to help them grow.

With AI this concern completely disappears! Now I can happily delegate pure grunt work. And the 24/7 availability is a big deal. I would never call a human intern at 11pm and tell them to have a research report on some code ready by 7am… but here I am, commanding my agent to do just that!

The idea being AI works on the secondary stuff and keep it ready while you work on the primary stuff.

I found the above idea important as well, to rotate grunt work among the full team. I have had this in the past where senior members would not work on tickets, etc.

We try to make sure everyone works on everything.

Bestsellers to Blockbusters: Stephen King Reflects on the Adaptations of His Work

I was just another horror-writing wannabe when I got to college, but one of those growth spurts happened while I was in a poetry seminar, where I fell under the influence of poets like William Carlos Williams, whose famous dictum was “No ideas but in things.” I was never much of a poet (although I tried hard), but Williams’s advice spoke to me. Thus, characters in my stories never swing open a medicine cabinet and see generic aspirin—they see Excedrin or Anacin. They never open the fridge and grab a beer, they grab a Bud or a PBR.

Good advice this.

Anthropic’s Claude gets a ‘memory’ upgrade by Robert Hart

Anthropic is rolling out an update for Claude that will let the AI chatbot “remember” past conversations without prompting. The upgrade for all paid subscribers should make Claude more useful and convenient.

ChatGPT already has this. It can be useful in principle. But it has the potential to taint the context.