Notices by Greg Wilson (gvwilson@mastodon.social), page 5

I _really_ enjoyed Wainwright's "Narconomics", which explores the economics of the illegal drug trade. It turns out that (for example) HR is more of a problem than you'd think: good accountants know they can actually make more money on Wall Street where crime is legal. Marketing, dispute resolution, quality control: it's a very fun read. But it sparked a thought… 1/2

@powersoffour @yabellini the problem I have with worldbuilding is the same problem I have with writing tools for books instead of books themselves: I could spend _forever_ "getting ready" and never get around to what I was supposed to be supporting.

@yabellini I can't think of anything I already know well enough to teach that I haven't taught - if I want to teach something new, I'll have to learn it myself first.

@yabellini like worldbuilding, that's something that other people have written about far better than I could.

@powersoffour If anyone wants to know about world building I'll just point them at @swan_tower 's books and get out of the way...

I've run out of things to teach.

Now Tom said, "Mom, wherever there's a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I'll be there"

"Wherever somebody's fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody's struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, and you'll see me"

Why is it "the dude abides" but "the dudes abide"? Wouldn't it make more sense if it was "the dude abide" (no 's' on either) and "the dudes abides" (both)? It makes no sense.

@mhoye I've just realized that such a project would inevitably be called Luberon, and, well…

The two hardest problems in computer science are compassion and organizational change. [thanks SL for the correction]

There may not be such a thing as a perfect album, but I believe k.d. lang's "Hymns of the 49th Parallel" comes close.

OH: "Ohmygod Netflix has the Barbie Transformers Lego Star Wars movie!!" A moment later: "Oh. But Ryan Gosling isn't in it. Never mind."

Somebody just explained VS Code to me as "Microsoft engineers trying to build the operating system they wish they had in the first place without the business side realizing it" and it makes a lot of sense.

Huh: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/apr/25/cost-of-developing-new-drugs-may-be-far-lower-than-industry-claims-trial-reveals

Nobody on the Voyager team should have to pay for their own drink ever again.

Jero Soler's "Drawflow" (https://github.com/jerosoler/Drawflow, https://jerosoler.github.io/Drawflow/) is the tool we needed four years ago to build TidyBlocks (a Scratch-like block-based tool for teaching introductory data science). I'm not going to take another run at it (starting a new job next week, too many unfinished projects) but if you have a grad student looking for a thesis project, I'd be happy to chat about what went right and wrong with TidyBlocks and why I think this would actually work.

I want them to do a sequel to "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" with the same cast except everyone plays a different character. Hugh Grant is the grim old one-eyed mercenary, Michelle Rodriguez is a giggly librarian-turned-witch, Regé-Jean Page is a swashbuckling pirate who can't seem to keep his shirt buttoned up, and Chris Pine is a vampire.

"This department has worked [10] days without an apocalyptic event."

My proposal for a "Bridgerton" / "Avatar: The Last Airbender" mash-up was just dismissed without, I feel, the consideration it deserved.

Found this hand-drawn world map from a campaign I put together in (wait for it) 1982. I wonder sometimes where they all are…