ACX prediction context halfway review, LLMs, and questions at work
We look at the status of the ACX 2024 prediction contest. We also learn how to invoke LLMs particularly conveniently from the command line to ask stupid questions, and what one should consider before answering questions at work.
I hope your week is going well!
New articles
q What do I title this article?
There is a tiny shell script called q which immediately became the script I use more than any other. It allows us to – from any terminal window, as we're working on something – ask stupid questions and get answers that are sometimes not stupid.
Full article (2–6 minute read): q What do I title this article?
ACX 2024 Prediction Contest Halfway Review
We figure out a primitive way to determine how well one is currently doing in a non-resolved forecasting competition, and do some comparisons in the acx 2024 Prediction Contest (me vs. community vs. Zvi's blind predictions). We also look at my reasoning behind almost all my forecasts in this competition.
Full article (5–20 minute read): ACX 2024 Prediction Contest Halfway Review
Flashcard of the week
A flashcard created from Allen Ward's Lean Product and Process Development (strongly recommended book!) asks
Before answering a question, what should one consider?
The context we should imagine is that we're sitting at work and someone pings us on Slack with a message. Before rushing to answer, we stop and ask ourselves one thing:
Does answering this question here and now generate reusable knowledge in a cost-effective way?
The Allen Ward philosophy is a separate full-length article I have yet to write, so I will try not to do that now. Instead, we'll just summarise and say that a large portion of the job of a knowledge worker is answering questions. More specifically, a product developer's job is to answer questions in a way that generates reusable knowledge.
What sets good product developers apart from mediocre ones is that good product developers generate reusable knowledge in a cost-effective way. This means we do not want to just go around answering questions willy-nilly. We will answer questions, but we will find ways to do it sustainably: Write better documentation, hold a presentation, start a wiki, redesign the workflow so the question goes away.
Sometimes doing a good job means not simply answering the question. You never need permission to do a good job.
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