I didn't realize whistleblowers could recover part of fraud settlements:
> The civil settlement includes the resolution of claims brought under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Sholto David. Under those provisions, a private party can file an action on behalf of the United States and receive a portion of any recovery. David will receive $2,625,000 under today’s settlement.
Is there actually a shortage of usable farmland? (If anything, I think the world would be better off if farmers used their land more efficiently and sustainably.)
If the cost of energy is a problem, I feel like we should fix that problem instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There's no reason residential customers should pay the same amount as data centers.
I'm finding it a little hard to believe that GPT 5.5 is in 11th place for webdev, outranked by models like Kimi, Qwen, and Z.ai. I'm not saying it's not true (I have noticed GPT being less smart in recent weeks), but this is very different from my expectation.
$2bn is their entire marketing spend, so it includes media buying, creative, in-store displays, PR, research, and anything else involved in the marketing mix.
FTA:
> The confectionery giant, home to brands like Reese’s and Skinny Pop, is working with the analytics platforms Mutinex and Tracer to automate marketing mix modeling — a statistical technique that measures how media spending and other variables drive sales — making it faster and more frequent.
So this system doesn't cost $2bn, it goes into the decision-making of where to spend the $2bn.
I agree that when you have a $2bn budget, it's hard to fathom tolerating a 6-mo analytics lead time, but I'm sure it's not alone, and I'm sure that's why this vendor lobbied Ad Age to cover this project.
"Leave them alone" is easy to type into a comment textbox but is much more difficult when it's a neighbor, or a family member, or someone else you have to interact with at a regular interval.
I highly recommend the book Hidden Valley Road for anyone curious about how difficult schizophrenia is for families and the researchers trying to find treatments.
In some cultures, you signal respecting someone's time by not bothering them.
In other cultures, you signal respecting someone's time by making small-talk with them.
Advice about making small talk vs. not making small talk is not really useful unless it acknowledges this cultural divide and the percentage chance a stranger falls into one culture or another.
His newsletter put me onto using Opus 4.5 exclusively on Dec 1, a little over a week after it was released. That's pretty good for a few minutes of reading a week.
I think this is a distinction between comedy and non-comedy genres.
There are many examples of protags in American comedies who never get their way -- Party Down, Seinfeld, Always Sunny. Part of this is the need for American sitcoms to maintain the status quo over dozens of episodes / several seasons.
You rarely see Hollywood action heroes who are beset with unrelenting disappointment -- they usually go through hell, but by the end of the third act, achieve some sort of triumph.
A notable counterexample is Sicario, but I wouldn't call it a "Hollywood action movie."
I really miss gallo pinto. I went to Costa Rica in 2009, and since then, nothing has been the same (in NYC).
It's mind-boggling that such a simple recipe can be so good in CR but so bad over here! I hear there are some Costa Rican restaurants in Paterson, NJ, but I haven't had the chance to check yet.
One number is not going to work for everyone. The only way to be sure is to get a blood test for Vitamin D levels. I get tested with my yearly physical, but if someone really cares they can get more frequent blood tests.