Mostly Bits Newsletter - Issue #76
Tony's Pick
This article succinctly describes the problems with editing text on mobile. I'm not entirely sure I like the proposed solution, but I definitely appreciate the description of the problems. I've always felt like I'm wearing gloves while editing text on mobile (as compared to macOS), but I mostly chalked that up to deep familiarity with desktop/keyboard tooling. I feel vindicated and a little bummed to be wrong.
Kyle's Pick
Scott Alexander (aka Astral Codex Ten aka Slate Star Codex) had a pretty interesting piece on Elon Musk a couple of weeks back, based mostly on the Ashlee Vance biography from 2015 combined with public information. My oversimplified summary — he pegs Musk as fairly intelligent, monomaniacally focused, good at things that boil down to physics, and (mostly) bad at things that don't. This passage early from the piece jumped out at me as well:
Musk has always been exactly the same person he is now, and exactly what he looks like. He is without deception, without subtlety, without unexpected depths.
There is also a follow-up thread where he highlights the most interesting comments. He notably adjusts his prediction of Twitter/X's success downwards based on the comments, especially from people who highlighted the importance of advertiser relationships (maybe that's what all of those employees he fired were doing?), as well as negative impacts to user experience for non-blue checkmark users and those outside of the United States. Anecdotally, I have found that replies to tweets are almost useless now because blue checkmark users are sorted before non-blue checkmark users regardless of quality.
