It should be pretty obvious at this point that AI is a "force multiplier" not a "labor substitute".
It helps experts be better at things they are already good at. It doesn't let beginners match experts.
If you can't write, anything you write with AI will be unmitigated slop.
If you aren't a software engineer, anything you vibecode with AI will have security holes and won't be able to scale past a toy demo.
If you blindly trust AI to deliver on a research task without knowing the subject matter, you won't be able to fact-check it.
There's this weird misconception of AI as something that completely levels the playing field. I don't see it that way at all. There are mathematicians deriving novel lemmas with off-the-shelf models. Normal people can't do that.
AI is a tool that makes experts better. It doesn't make everyone into an expert.
It's hard to tell that Bitcoin protects against debasement from just its price, since most of the price rise since the pizza purchase has been due to the learning curve, not to debasement (fiat has fallen, but not by nearly as much as Bitcoin has risen!). To understand why Bitcoin has and very likely will protect in the long-term against debasement, better than gold has and will, requires deep understanding of the underlying respective technologies that are gold and Bitcoin, especially in terms of their respective extents and qualities of trust minimizaion, and it requires knowing why trust minimization is valuable. These kinds of understandings are still uncommon.
Over a decade ago, @FiveThirtyEight published a clever methodology for estimating someone's age based on their first name.
I turned it into an interactive tool, the Name Age Calculator. Type in "Jennifer" and discover when that name peaked in 140+ years of Social Security data (spoiler: 1970s babies). It went semi-viral and got picked up by major outlets.
I've kept it running all these years because people genuinely enjoy it. It's one of those simple projects that reminds me why I love building things: when data tells an interesting story, people want to engage with it.
Try it out: https://t.co/WbzEOUzFRO
Drop a comment with the most surprising name age you discover. I'm curious what you'll find.
#DataScience #dataviz #DataAnalysis
The company hired me to lead their "Agile Transformation."
I don't know what Agile means.
Nobody does.
That's why it works.
I make $425,000 a year.
To move sticky notes.
From left to right.
On a board.
The board is digital now.
The sticky notes cost $80,000 in Jira licenses.
Progress.
Day one, I said "we need to break down silos."
Everyone nodded.
Silos are bad.
I don't know why.
But destroying them is a career.
My career.
I introduced "squads."
Squads are teams.
But disrupted.
We disrupted the teams into teams.
Different names.
Same people.
Same problems.
But Agile problems now.
Agile problems are strategic.
A senior engineer asked what we're actually changing.
I said, "The mindset."
He asked what that means.
I said, "It's a journey."
He asked where we're going.
I said, "Toward agility."
He asked what agility means.
I pointed at the sticky notes.
They were moving left to right.
That's velocity.
We have velocity now.
The VP of Engineering said two-week sprints don't fit their work.
I said, "That's waterfall thinking."
Waterfall is bad.
Like silos.
I don't know what waterfall is.
But I know it's bad.
She stopped talking.
Waterfall accusations end conversations.
We had a retrospective.
In the retro, we discussed what went wrong.
Everything went wrong.
We put it on sticky notes.
Then we moved the sticky notes.
Into a column called "Parking Lot."
The Parking Lot is where problems go to die.
It's full.
We don't look at it.
That's agile.
Velocity is up 40%.
I defined velocity.
I also defined the points.
I also defined the stories.
We're crushing it.
At the things I made up.
To measure.
Ourselves.
The CEO asked for ROI.
I showed a chart.
The chart went up.
Charts should go up.
This one did.
I didn't label the Y-axis.
Nobody asked.
Leadership is confidence.
We do standups now.
Every day.
We stand.
For 45 minutes.
Standing is agile.
Sitting is waterfall.
My legs hurt.
But we're transforming.
The transformation is now "Phase 3."
Phase 1 was assessment.
Phase 2 was implementation.
Phase 3 is "continuous improvement."
Continuous means forever.
Forever means job security.
I'm very secure.
My contract was extended.
Three more years.
For "cultural impact."
The culture is confused.
But impacted.
Agile transformation isn't about being agile.
It's about transforming.
Continuously.
Toward more transformation.
The destination is the journey.
The journey is billable.
I've run a meetup for 10 years. Here's my perspective on where the semi-technical bitcoiner is at these days.
The Medium Bitcoiner has a fiat job and a hardware wallet. He's stacking as much as possible. He believes in the sound money thesis. He has a family and needs a simple bitcoin setup that works without heavy maintenance.
Two years ago he finally connected his hardware wallet to a node via Sparrow, Umbrel, or Start9. A cut of his salary ends up on this hardware wallet every month. He knows not to leave on exchanges.
On his phone he has a custodial lightning wallet that he uses to pay for things when he can. He funds it from his cold wallet. He believes in the eventual circular economy and wants to help make it happen. He's not going to run a lightning node.
He hates updating anything. His ideal update schedule is as follows:
Node - when I get a new computer
Hardware wallet - when I get a new hardware wallet
Lightning wallet - when I get a new phone
He isn't heavy into the debates. He has a conservative approach to changes. He wants bugs fixed. He wants security and reliability improvements. He wants new features only when there's overwhelming agreement.
He's annoyed by Knots' defaulting to bricking your node after two years. He's annoyed by Core making changes without clear agreement. He's annoyed by having to switch lightning phone wallets every 6 months because they stop working.
He's still runs Core v27. He's not going to update anytime soon. Especially not until this stuff settles down.
He hasn't lost any faith in the long term success of bitcoin. He's just a little worried that Core, Knots, and Lightning software are now being made by developers for developers, and not for users like him.
Try this:
- Lay down fully and try to have an intellectually demanding phone call
- Same thing but sitting up
- Same thing but walking in the sun
You'll understand quickly