Bret Terpstra’s Marked 3 Beta is out. As powerful as BBEdit is, I still have to deal with many .docx documents without any reliable way to convert heavily tracked and commented versions to markdown and back. After a quick test, Marked 3 seems to fit the bill. I will happily be a paying customer as soon as Terpstra gives me the opportunity, so here is to a successful launch!

• Dan Frank: 15 theses on the optimization crisis: or why so many are dissatisfied with society, despite our prosperity. I can but nod along, as I have noted these soul-deadening tendencies myself a few times before. Point number 9 was particularly salient as I read about Robert De Niro’s hotel chains and George Clooney’s old tequila business, perpetuating the cycle of greed and envy.
• David Cain: Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High. An argument for slowing down most things you do, with an emphasis of reading. Pairs nicely with Alan Jacobs' advice on reading, particularly the second paragraph.
• Andrew Gelman: How much of an NBA team’s won-loss record is from skill and how much is luck? Gelman provides a neat step-by-step account of a statistical exploration which you will appreciate even if you are not a basketball fan. Note his advice on slowing down and thinking about what to expect before performing an analysis. After this you will have an idea of how much the practitioners of journalist science leave out in their final write-ups.
• Steve Dylan: How Gemini Gives Me Hope for a Future Internet. No, not Google’s LLM, but a text-based protocol that reimagines how hypertext on the Internet could work. And if it seems cumbersome compared to even “surfing the web” — let alone mindlessly thumbing down a social feed — well, there lies much of the point!
• Charlie Buckland for BBC Wales: We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years. Just a feel-good story for the holiday season, to be read slowly and enjoyed.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

📸 Day 11: Feast.

We have made countless food spreads for ourselves and the kids, but here is one that they made for us. And it was delicious!

📸 Day 10: Travel.

Of which we did a lot this year. The first trip was to San Francisco to see some of its tilted houses or, in this case, a tilted hotel.

📸 Day 9: Baking.

A box of Honolulu’s finest malassadas. We learned about the place from our Lyft driver who turned out to be a fellow Serbian immigrant. Small world.

• Adam Mastroianni: So you wanna de-bog yourself. Mastroianni has a playful way with words that is a joy to read regardless of the topic, but this one in particular fits nicely in the New Year resolution-making season. It is Oliver Burkeman-like advice condensed into shorter snippets, for those who have not yet reached middle age.
• David Allen (or whoever writes his newsletter): The biggest secret about goal setting. Note that there is a big difference between setting your own personal goals and the several steps-removed goals that management gives to their teams. The bit about changing the saliency landscape applies to both.
• Yann LeCun: “the concept (of general intelligence) is compete BS”; the Nobel prize winner Demis Hassabis disagrees. But the fourth paragraph of that rebuttal is precisely what LeCun was talking about (mistaking specific for the general because it has “general” in the name).
• Karl Schroeder: Stop Thinking. ⊕ ᔥJohn Naughton On the difference between “understanding” — which is the analytical method that the people in the rationalist community, LLMs, and Mr. Spock do extremely well — and “reasoning”, which I understand (hah!) to be more akin to Charlie Munger’s mental models, applied intuitively, fluidly, and to the rationalist’s eyes haphazardly. Feel free to apply this distinction to the debate one bullet point above.
• Lily Lynch: Serbia’s Vučić Enters Deeper International Isolation. Could not have happened to a more deserving person! Although of course this means nothing but bad news for my fatherland so I wish El Presidente all the best in the New Year and may what is left of his reign be peaceful if not very long.

🍿 Wake Up Dead Man (2025) was a better murder mystery than Glass Onion with a more poignant message than either of its predecessors. Rian Johnson has an uncanny ability to pick the right topic to pick on, and the theme of religious revival was spot on.