329 Posts under Mango Paper
Look, there is a crossroad ahead. And I'm equally excited and nervous about two of the three directions.
I had a dream a few days ago. I was trying to align a model, swimming in a sea of neurons and performing surgeries on them.
Then, I ran into a circuit of neurons. They spoke to me, "Turn around, are you sure we are neurons of the model?"
As I was turning around, I suddenly realized that my neurons and the model's neurons had become interconnected and indistinguishable.
Now that titles on my website's posts are optional, and posts are synced to both Mastodon and Bluesky, I'll try to post everything to my website first.
Hello, universe 👋
Operation AIM
Last week I needed quick access to Python's standard library documentation outside of work. Having built custom URL shortener mappings twice in corporate environments, I really missed the productivity boost from these shortcuts.
Fortunately and also unfortunately, I decided to build it for the third time. In the past, I avoided public availability because the productivity boost also requires a very short url for the shortener. Then I remembered desktop Chrome's custom site shortcuts feature. Once configured, the domain length becomes irrelevant.
You can now use https://mangoumbrella.com/go/<FULLY.QUALIFIED.SYMBOL> to jump directly to Python's standard library reference docs. Here are some examples:
- https://mangoumbrella.com/go/dict.update
- https://mangoumbrella.com/go/typing
- https://mangoumbrella.com/go/typing.Literal
- https://mangoumbrella.com/go/concurrent.futures.ThreadPoolExecutor
To set it up in desktop Chrome, add a new search engine with your preferred keyword (like go) and URL https://mangoumbrella.com/go/%s. Then just type go dict.update in the address bar to get to the docs you need.
Cabel Sasser at the 2024 XOXO Festival
I have always enjoyed Cabel's dedication to his interest, and how he always finds himself in a very deep rabbit hole. The story telling is really good, you have to watch it.
Google’s Alphabet Rebranding Didn’t Actually Fail
In ATP 607, the hosts discussed about Meta's Orion glasses. During the discussion, Marco mentioned that Meta has a pretty overall successful rebranding. John responded with Meta's "renaming is going better than Alphabet for sure". No one will disagree with John here, but it's actually comparing apples and oranges.
Meta is now the company, with Facebook being just one of its products.
On the other hand, Alphabet is a holding company, and Google is both a product and a company under its umbrella. Other companies like Waymo also fall under Alphabet. When Alphabet was formed, it was intentionally designed to not have any products associated with it.
How do I know about this? I worked on Abseil Common Libraries. It's an open-source collection of common C++ and Python libraries widely used by Google internally. The project was funded nine years ago as a result of Alphabet's formation, with the goal of sharing common infrastructures between Google and other Alphabet companies. Because of this mission, the project was initially named Alphabet Common Libraries. C++ used abcl:: as the namespace and Python used abcl as the package name. However during the launch review, the branding team rejected the name as it went against the policy. We had to change the name before the launch. We decided to change one letter to the C++ namespace and Python package so the code refactoring we had to do was easier. The new name is spelled as absl and we walked backwards from the pronunciation of absl to the word abseil.
All I'm trying to say is, Alphabet wasn't a rebranding effort because Alphabet isn't supposed to be a brand. The rebranding didn't actually fail because there is no rebranding in the first place.
Now you might think I'm just defending Google. No. Even though there was no rebranding, everyone thinks this was a failed rebranding attempt. This is what matters. This is actually very on brand of Google that it doesn't do well in PR, marketing, and branding. Meta, on the other hand, is better at this.
∞ End of the Road for Google Drive in Transmit
From Panic's blog:
Well, Google has a new set of policies that require apps that connect to Google Drive to go through expensive, time-consuming annual reviews, and this has made it extremely difficult for us to reasonably maintain Google Drive access. You may have seen iA Writer’s announcement that they are stopping development of their Android version for similar reasons. Our experience was different, but our circumstances are similar. While Google Drive may not be the most popular connection option in Transmit, we know many users rely on it, and we often use it here at Panic to send and receive files from the game developers we work with.
This is not a decision we took lightly, and was the result of much debate and anguish in the office. But rest assured we looked at every angle. Hopefully that explains everything.
Google's leadership continues to drive away developers who made their platforms successful. Why am I not surprised?
∞ How to Transfer Apple Music Playlists to YouTube
From the support page,
From Apple's Data and Privacy page, you can request to transfer the playlists that you’ve made in Apple Music to YouTube Music.
What a welcoming change. Companies that provide photos and musics are supporting data exchanges.
∞ Cities need more trees
On top of that it just looks better. I'm certain humans have genetic biophilia, which is why we love being in nature or taking walks in the forest. Having trees around us, teeming with birds and other life just feels good. Speaking of birds, trees increase the biodiversity of insects and other small critters in urban environments. It also gives birds a safe-haven from the deadliest hunter of all: the humble house cat.
I very much agree that cities just look better with trees. That's why I fell in love with Menlo Park the place I have been living for 9 years. It's a much greener city than most of other places in Bay Area.
∞ Screen Apnea: What Happens to Our Breath When We Type, Tap, Scroll
Manoush Zomorodi, Katie Monteleone, and Sanaz Meshkinpour from NPR's Body Electric podcast:
In 2007, former Microsoft executive Linda Stone noticed something strange happening every time she'd sit down to answer emails. She was holding her breath.
"I would inhale in anticipation, but I wouldn't exhale because so many emails would be streaming in," Stone told Manoush Zomorodi in an interview for NPR's Body Electric. "And this would go on for hours."
Stone wondered how common this was and set out to investigate using "kitchen table science," as she called it. She recruited dozens of friends and colleagues to sit at her computer answering emails while she monitored their pulse and heart rate variability. Of those participants, 80% had what Stone coined "email or screen apnea" — shallow or suspended breathing while working on a screen.
80% of people has screen apnea. That's a lot.