Hello there, and welcome to a new decade! Or at least a new decade for the Kable. I don’t have much to say this issue, and I need to run, so enjoy the Kable! As always, ten great things to read from across the internet.
1 From Open Source Software to Open Source Strategy - P3 Institute
I remember reading this on the CalTrain up and down the Bay Area, and it honestly felt pretty fitting to be reading it in that setting. The author, Bill Gurley, was a partner at Benchmark, one of the top venture firms, and here he talks about open source “strategy”, a corporate strategy inspired by the world of open source software. In short, the playbook does a bunch of things: “neutralize a stronger competitor, commoditize an expensive input, align an industry around a shared standard, or head off a regulatory crisis.” There’s six examples demonstrating it in action, and I really enjoyed this.
2 The Making of Indian Statistics - Alter Magazine
Alter Magazine keeps giving! This visually delightful piece by Hiya Jain talks about the history of Indian statistics, starting from 1933 British India. The Indian Statistical Institute under PC Mahalanobis not only applied existing methods to Indian agricultural problems, but developed new techniques entirely, in particular in “sampling theory”: how do you randomly sample a small subset of the target population to get an accurate measurement of the whole? What a fun piece to read and look through! The essay also talks about CR Rao, who I have a connection with - he was half of the Cramer-Rao bound that formed the basis of my PhD thesis.
3 Politics and the English Language - Orwell Foundation
I’ve shared this essay by George Orwell once, long long ago - issue #98! I happened to stumble upon it again a few weeks ago, and it’s a good time to reshare. Orwell talks about how a lot of modern English (the essay was written in 1946) is filled with “nothing” phrases - lots of Latin-origin words strung together to mean nothing and everything at the same time. It’s the kind of essay that I’d like to put on my read-once-a-year routine.
4 how to enter side doors - Velvet Noise
I’m a fan of Maja’s writing (see also the key to love is understanding from issue #356) and I like this one a lot too. It’s about how to enter companies or organizations outside of the “usual” pathways: how to find “illegible” jobs which hover around the edges as unsolved tension. Highly recommend! I particularly liked Maja’s framing of: “Specificity is one of the highest forms of respect.”
5 Burnout is breaking a sacred pact - Useful Fictions
Nice complement to the previous piece - Cate Hall talks about burnout and how burnout is about a breakdown of communication between the “elephant” and the “rider” inside us. The elephant is the instinctive and emotional part of us, and the rider is the rational voice that engages in long-term planning. When you go through extended periods of time of the elephant and rider not having their needs met, then burnout is a natural outcome.
6 Leisure as a Dream Job - Madison Huizinga’s Substack
Ha! What a nice thing to read after a piece about burnout - I enjoyed this essay by Madison Huizinga about what we’d do if leisure was our pursuit, or what we’d do if we didn’t have to worry about paying the bills and saving. What would we do if we could do what we want? I love that the essay starts off with a reference to Dua Lipa - in particular because of her Service95 book club (which is really good!).
7 How Alexander Grothendieck Revolutionized 20th-Century Mathematics - Quanta Magazine
Nice successor of sorts to He was in mystic delirium: was this hermit mathematician a forgotten genius whose ideas could transform AI‚ or a lonely madman? which I shared a few months ago. Grothendick did so much for 20th century mathematics - this is a technical/popular-technical introduction to his actual work, and not just his legend.
8 50 Hours to Draw Some Lines - Doug MacDowell’s website
Superb exposition of how to draw graphs with purely analog methods. So nice! And look at how lovely the final output is.
9 A Playboy Interview With Miles Davis - Playboy
Phew. This is a pretty insightful and hard-hitting interview of Miles Davis published in Playboy back in 1962. He talks a lot about race, his perception in society and he also responds to the interviewer asking how he feels about being perceived as rude to his audience. I liked this a lot.
10 The Same River Twice - David Quammen’s website
Another lovely piece from decades past. This one is from 1986 - you start off thinking its nature writing, but then it ends up being a pretty devastating piece about relationships ending.