The Curious Engineer

All blogs / AI / ML

Normcore Tech

newsletter.vickiboykis.com

Hi! This is the newsletter for posts that I post on my website, things that used to go into my NormCore Tech newsletter, and general news/updates from me. I write about topics related to: machine learningrecommender systems and information retrievaltech and society Welcome to The Stream!

AI / MLSoftware / engineering practiceEssays / personal

’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
189 from 20 May 2019 to 2 Sep 2026
Posting
monthly (10 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://newsletter.vickiboykis.com/rss

2026 9

  1. Bad code is kudzu
  2. Write for people
  3. Running local models is good now
  4. We should be more tired than the model
  5. Tagging my blog posts with BERTopic and LLMs
  6. Build yourself flowers
  7. Mechanical sympathy
  8. On Programming Joy and Octocat
  9. Antidote

2025 7

  1. My 2025 in production in review
  2. I want to see the claw
  3. Walking around the app
  4. How big are our embeddings now and why?
  5. My favorite use-case for AI is writing logs
  6. 20 years of YC
  7. Everything I did in 2024

2024 12

  1. Write code with your Alphabet Radio on
  2. Why are we using LLMs as calculators?
  3. Dead Internet Souls
  4. Don't worry about LLMs
  5. We've been put in the vibe space
  6. The blank slate in your hands January 27, 2021 A couple of housekeeping things: I’ve been pretty busy lately! I gave a keynote at RStudio’s 2021 Conference. You can find all the slides here and it’ll be...
  7. How I search in 2024
  8. Diamond hands, when memes became power ✋💎🤚 February 4, 2021 Detail from Mary I by Hans Eworth, 1520 A few months ago, my corner of the internet was completely fixated on Four Seasons Total Landscaping, the small yard...
  9. Redis is forked
  10. The last miles and miles of the vaccine February 11, 2021 The Doctor’s Waiting Room, Makovsky, 1870 Hey, your friendly neighborhood COVID CEO here, popping in with the latest news from my board room. Almost five...
  11. What's new with machine learning in production
  12. The luxury of length March 14, 2021 Hi Friends, It’s been a while since my last post, almost a month, as the dashboard shows. But it’s not like I haven’t been thinking about it.I’ve been...

2023 12

  1. My favorite books of 2023
  2. Scaling Normcore way down July 11, 2021 Goodbye on the Mersey, James Tissot, 1881 Hello friends! As you might have guessed from my four-month absence, I can no longer continue writing Normcore on a...
  3. Why if TYPE_CHECKING in Python?
  4. With the Feed as my witness March 20, 2022 Pigeons, Maria Primachenko, 1968 Hello friends old and new, it’s been a while. Last year, I stopped writing Normcore Tech, a weekly newsletter about tech and...
  5. Hello it's Normcore again
  6. Duo, the Push, and the Bandits May 23, 2022 The Little Owl, Albrecht Durer 1508 Some people say that Duo, the light-green mascot of Duolingo, an app that helps you learn different languages by prodding...
  7. What we don't talk about when we talk about building AI apps
  8. What we talk about when we talk about The Algo August 8, 2022 Dynamo Machine, Natalia Goncharova Quick programming notes: I wrapped up my previous gig a few weeks ago and I’m psyched to be starting as Sr. Machine...
  9. Naming things
  10. The art of the long goodbye November 7, 2022 Quick programming notes: NormConf is a real, free conference and it is happening on December 15. See you there! Second, I recently had the distinct privilege...
  11. What are embeddings?
  12. Where do we go from here February 27, 2023 Manley Beach Summer is Here, Ethel Carrick Hello friends, it’s been a long while since we’ve had a Normcore Tech. Quite honestly, I’ve been feeling a little...

2021 1

  1. Manuscripts don't burn July 26, 2020 Going to try something new for just today, don’t worry, the transcript is below the page scans :). Transcript I’ve been writing a lot more in notebooks...

2020 69

  1. Are you as smart as a toddler? August 2, 2020 Art: Forbidden Literature (The Use of the Word) Rene Magritte, 1936When my oldest turned two, we started letting her indulge in short stretches of screen-...
  2. Pixie Hollow won't scale August 5, 2020 For the past sixty-seven years, I have been watching “Tinker Bell”, a Disney CGI spin-off from Peter Pan created in 2008 as part of the Disney Fairies...
  3. Google and the Nothing August 14, 2020 Art: Friendship, Pablo Picasso, 1908Vicki’s Note: I realize the irony of complaining about paywalls in a semi-paywalled newsletter, so as of today, I’m...
  4. The future of luxury is on-site(ish) August 16, 2020 Art: Allegory of Touch, Jusepe di Reberta, 1630I’ve been reading a very good book lately, Ashley Mears’ “Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the...
  5. When the internet stopped in Belarus August 21, 2020 Art: Embrace, Pablo Picasso, 1900We swim in the seas of the internet every single day. We use Google Drive, which is production, we order food, we channel...
  6. No one talks about Teams August 27, 2020 Welcome aboard, new Normcore readers! As it says on the tin, this newsletter is all about the less-examined parts of tech written from the perspective of me,...
  7. Traffic lights on the internet August 29, 2020 Art: Traffic Island on Boulevard Haussmann, Gustave Caillebotte, 1880I saw a tweet come up on my feed a couple days back celebrating the history of the first...
  8. The average opinion of 10k people in SF September 2, 2020 Art: The Factory, Camille Pissaro, 1873A few months ago, I finally signed up for a paid Spotify subscription. I’d been quarantined with the kids for about...
  9. The chaos of complexity September 12, 2020 Art: Portrait of Marguerite Sleeping, Henri Matisse, 1920Since being promoted to CEO in March, I’ve made a lot of decisions with partially-complete...
  10. The person on the other side of the crowd September 22, 2020 Art: Chaos nr. 2, Hilma af Klint, 1096Over the weekend, I was catching up on the piece in New York Magazine by model and actress Emily Ratajkowski, about how...
  11. The satisfaction of the hand-off October 8, 2020 Hi, friends! Sorry for the brief absence. I’ve been off putting together some other things. Last week, I taught an introduction to Python for WSDS. And this...
  12. The rise of the non-expert expert October 20, 2020 Art: Profit I, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982 I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it was like to write code 20, 30 years ago. At the time, one of my...
  13. You're a sky full of stars November 1, 2020 Art: Starry Night, Edvard Munch, 1922 Vicki’s Note: I guest-wrote a piece for Leon’s newsletter last week on what AI truly means. Go read it! It was sometime...
  14. The great A/B/C/D divide November 12, 2020 Art: Argument over a Card Game, Jan Steen What do you see when you power on your doom brick for the first time in the morning? For me, it’s first and...
  15. Ad block and you don't stop November 23, 2020 Art: Advertisement for Pope Manufacturing Co., "We are Having a Heavenly Time" Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, 1890 Something I worry about a lot is that I don’t...
  16. The rules of the game December 1, 2020 Playing Chess, Wilhelm Kotarbinski My husband and I have finally started watching Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, making us officially the last people on the face...
  17. My Hero's Journey to Peloton December 16, 2020 Le cirque: Acrobate à la bicyclette, Bernard Buffet 1955 Early last year, the face of an extremely terrified woman looked at me through the small window of...
  18. A winter's tale for the end of the year December 21, 2020 Winter Forest, Ivan Shishkin Some time ago, on a dark snowy winter’s night, in a land far from here, four Councilors to the Emperor stood together huddled in...
  19. Containerized January 12, 2021 Vanity Box, Kasimir Malevich Happy New Year, Normcore Readers! Here’s to a happier, and most important, healthier 2021. “That’s it”, my husband said, as I...
  20. It's time to build - if you have the bucks April 21, 2020 Art: The Builders, Fernand Leger, 1955Over the weekend, while I was watering a terrarium with my daughter, cutting up bananas for my son, trying to clean up...
  21. What I'm doing differently online April 24, 2020 This is going to be a quick post because I’m catching up on what I missed since I was WFF most of the week (if you’ve emailed me and haven’t gotten an...
  22. Google Drive is production April 28, 2020 Art: Composition with Grid IX, Piet Mondrian, 1919A couple weeks ago, Jack Dorsey tweeted that he was donating money to fighting COVID. A whole lot of money....
  23. Instacart on my mind May 1, 2020 Art: Flower Store and Dairy Store, Childe Hassam, 1888Since we are trying to avoid public places as much as possible, Instacart is how we get our food. As a...
  24. Your mattress as a service May 6, 2020 Artwork: Paul Cezanne, The Card Players, 1890I wouldn’t wish having a newborn on my worst enemy. However, one of the really nice benefits is that you get to...
  25. On watching Succession May 8, 2020 Art: Family of the Businessman B. H. Strousberg, Ludwig Knaus (1870) The first weekend of The Plague, when I thought I actually had The Plague, I was...
  26. We are all Gaga now May 13, 2020 Art: The Martyrdom of St. Lucy, Domenico Veneziano, 1445In 2019, Lady Gaga, who has 81 million followers, tweeted randomly, “Fame is prison.” The responses...
  27. Send help, I am watching Frozen 2 May 16, 2020 Art: Sisters, Mary Cassatt, 1885I am normally normcoreishly against passive screentime for kids, but all rules have gone out the window during quarantine,...
  28. A year in Normland May 21, 2020 Art: Woman Writing a Letter, Frans Van Mieris, 1680Last time this year, seven months pregnant, but still somehow exhibiting less outward signs of physical...
  29. Can I pay you to forget this? May 22, 2020 Art: The Lawyers, Honore Daumier, 1854This is going to be a quick one because I have to go watch the second season of Succession, but I’ve been watching the...
  30. It's time to maintain May 27, 2020 Art: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Tamakatzura Tamatori attacked by the octopusI’ve been trying to write this post about how difficult life has become now that all...
  31. Trusting the robots in your life May 30, 2020 A couple days ago, I was taking the kids to the park. Usually we try to go outside at least once a day during quarantine. To figure out what we need to wear,...
  32. Taking the shine off the Apple (and FB and Google) June 6, 2020 Vicki’s Note: We’re really circling the drain of what’s left of America in 2020, aren’t we? I have nothing smart or relevant to contribute to the dialogue...
  33. You have reached the next level June 11, 2020 Vicki’s note: This post is a little light this week because I had an in-depth machine learning post I’ve been wanting to get out the door since *checks...
  34. Into the unknown June 14, 2020 Art: A Walk at Sunset, Victor Borisov Musatov, 1903For the past three months, I’ve been doing a lot of walking. Usually, me and the two kids will take a...
  35. New job and Normcore pause June 18, 2020 Hi Friends, I got a new job. I started as a machine learning engineer at Automattic, the company behind Wordpress.com (and a lot of other products), and I...
  36. The Silicon Uncanny Valley of Apps June 29, 2020 Vicki’s note: I’m still figuring out my rhythm at work, and as such will be easing back into the newsletter. Expect upcoming posts to be shorter and the...
  37. Away we go July 10, 2020 Art: Burning ship (the episode of the Russian-Turkish War), Ivan AivazovskyYou may have heard about a large-scale war between Journalist Twitter and VC...
  38. The data lake overfloweth July 17, 2020 Art:The Second Skin, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 1986A while ago, Tim created a Twitter bot called Your Old Tweets (sadly no longer in service due to...
  39. From spyplanes to Facebook July 24, 2020 Art: The Mechanics of Flying, Arshile GorkyVicki’s note: I’m turning paid subscriptions back on! I was really hesitant about it because I don’t think I can...
  40. Apple's Memoji and the uncanny valley January 30, 2020 Art: The Mask, Frida Kahlo, 1945“Our bodies are a big part of the way we communicate,” writes Gretchen McCulloch in “Because Internet”, a book about living...
  41. One very bad Apple February 4, 2020 Art: Apple Gatherers, Camille Pissaro, 1891My fifth grade teacher, Mr. Stains, had a big energy about him. He imparted two American cultural norms upon me....
  42. What's ours is not ours February 6, 2020 Art: The Aircraft in the Sky, Fernand LegerMany moons ago, I kept all my music on an iPod. The winter of 2005 was not easy. I was a sophomore in college,...
  43. Why don't we get the news we need? February 11, 2020 Art: The Mirror of Venus, Edward Burne-Jones, 1875 Last month, New York Times technology journalist Kashmir Hill wrote a shocking piece about a US-based...
  44. The market for memes February 14, 2020 Art: Pope Leo After Raphael, Fernando Botero, 1964On one of my weekly visits to Facebook (which I’ve mostly disengaged from since I wrote this post in 2017...
  45. What I know about running a paid newsletter for 9 months February 18, 2020 Art: Writing Desk, Olga Rozanova, 1914It’s been about nine months since I started Normcore Tech, and four months since the last time I talked about revenue....
  46. Don't cry over dropshipped formula February 21, 2020 Art: Bottle, Georges Braque, 1914When my son was 4.5 months old, he pulled the ultimate baby power move and decided to stop nursing, so we switched to...
  47. Easy as A, B, Chromebook February 25, 2020 Art: The Country School, Winslow Homer, 1871With my daughter quickly approaching school age, I’ve been doing some research on the current state of the...
  48. Doctor, sponsor thyself February 28, 2020 Art: The Patient and the Doctor, Gabriel Metsu, 1660Normcore is all about not reading the news and not panicking, but I have to admit the threat of...
  49. Data centers are the new oil March 3, 2020 Art: Desert Journey, Maynard Dixon, 1935A few months ago, a friend sent me a link about Matthew McConaughey coming to Utah to speak at a tech conference,...
  50. The sound of music March 6, 2020 Art: The San Giobbe Altarpiece Detail of Music Making Angels, Giovani Bellini, 1480Stuff is really stressful right now. It’s usually stressful, but with the...
  51. All numbers are made up, some are useful March 9, 2020 Art: Number 1, Jackson Pollock, 1949There was a fantastic American game show in the 2000s, “Whose Line is it Anyway”, where the participants were given an...
  52. Normcore is coming to you from a social distance March 13, 2020 Art: DIN, Vladimir Bonacic, 1969Sorry if this is one of a million coronavirus newsletters you’re getting, but it’s hard to think about anything else given...
  53. We need tests, we're getting geotracking March 17, 2020 Art: Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880, before he started socially distancing Ok, if we’re at the end of the world, we might as well examine the...
  54. Is this a STEM lesson? March 20, 2020 Art: Needlepoint in a Russian Village, Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky, 1936It seems like, with the situation lately, everyone is trying to homeschool their kids....
  55. Any port in a storm, as long as it has facemasks March 24, 2020 Art: Georges Braques, Ships at Le Havre, 1905Last week, a woman posted in my local Nextdoor group, asking people to please, please donate PPE - personal...
  56. The eye of the new norm March 27, 2020 I am writing this post sitting on a couch completely surrounded by blocks, teething toys, wipes, pages slapped together with glitter glue, and an iPad that...
  57. Congrats, you're the CEO now March 31, 2020 Art: Portrait of General Thomas Gage, John Singleton Copley, 1768Reality sucks right now, so let’s play pretend. Let’s make believe that you’re the CEO of a...
  58. Re-entering the bardo April 3, 2020 Art: Ocean Waves, Katsushika HokusaiA couple months ago, I went back to work after maternity leave, and described the mood of maternity leave as being in the...
  59. An empty Google doc of my own April 8, 2020 Art: Figure at a Window, Salvador Dali, 1925Vicki’s Note: Normcore is taking a break for Passover, and will be back the week of 4/20. One of the things I’m...
  60. Tablets at the table November 22, 2019 A recent trend I’ve seen at restaurants over the last five years or so is kids glued to screens sitting next to family members who are talking to each other...
  61. We're still in the steam-powered days of machine learning November 26, 2019 The reveal of the ridiculous Cybertruck design last week made me curious about the history of cars. If you look at pictures of cars from the early days (as...
  62. Reading Zuck's emails November 29, 2019 I wrote a couple weeks ago that if your company gets sued, your email becomes collateral, The key issue at hand here is a legal term known as “discovery.”...
  63. Keybase and the chaos of crypto December 3, 2019 Today, it’s nearly impossible to have a truly private conversation online. Someone is always listening: either the company providing the chat service, or...
  64. Open thread: Keybase's next steps December 5, 2019 About a day after I published the post on Keybase and their inaction against spammers on their platform, Keybase put out this blog post, “Dealing with Spam...
  65. Sidewalks for the internet December 6, 2019 Since having a second kid, my husband and I realized that we are rapidly out-kippling our ability to stay in our current house, and we’ve been on the hunt...
  66. Weird Government Twitter versus Zuck December 10, 2019 (Vicki’s note: I had so much fun writing the Elon Musk post and we’ve had so many Serious Normcore posts lately, that I made an executive decision that it’s...
  67. Venture capital will now ruin coffee December 13, 2019 Most mornings, fresh after a night of waking up anywhere between three and five million times to feed and change the baby, and then getting the preschooler...
  68. Jack and I prove that humans are not web scale December 18, 2019 (Vicki’s Note: I’m going to do one more post after this one for 2019 ( fingers crossed), and then Normcore is on vacation for the rest of the year. I’ll be...
  69. Thanks for all the tech in 2019 December 23, 2019 As we get to the end of the year, the days get short and dark, and the post-Christmas kipple offer emails start flooding my inbox, I get to reflecting. This...

2019 79

  1. Thank you paid Normcore subscribers! January 2, 2020 Happy 2020, Normcore paid subscribers! I’m launching an experiment tomorrow selling Normcore laptop stickers. As a thank-you for subscribing and supporting...
  2. AI won't save healthcare January 6, 2020 Art: Jan Steen, Doctor’s Visit, 1661Several years ago, when my firstborn was very young, I thought I was having a heart attack. I was watching my seven-...
  3. Open thread: How would you spend Google's healthcare ca$h? January 8, 2020 I had a ton of feedback after publishing AI Won’t Save Healthcare earlier this week. Thank you for replying! The main counterargument to the article has...
  4. Nextdoor, a social network I don't hate January 9, 2020 Art: Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Neighborhoods Khvalynsk, 1909 A couple months ago, I got an overly enthusiastic flyer in the mail saying that my town had...
  5. Normcore stickers are for sale! January 13, 2020 The TL, DR:Buy: Stickers. Mug. Notepad. The long version: Happy 2020, Normcore readers! This post is just a bit of housekeeping that’s accumulated and that I...
  6. Good Rings don't scale January 14, 2020 Art: Ring around the Rosy, Maurice Prendergast, 1903The thing that sticks out the most about the Philadelphia office of Ring — the Amazon-owned digital...
  7. Leaving the Bardo January 16, 2020 Art: Open Door in a Garden, Konstantin Somov, 1934Over maternity leave, late at night, I purchased a best-selling book called “Lincoln in the Bardo” by...
  8. When you write a web server but you get served January 21, 2020 Art: Unexpected Visitors, Ilya Repin, 1888ServedIf you go to Nginx.com, the company behind one of the world’s most popular web servers, you’ll find the most...
  9. Devices that delight January 23, 2020 Art: Drunk woman is tired, Pablo Picasso, 1902I can count on one hand the number of recent(ish) tech purchases or experiences that have brought me joy. The...
  10. You'll love our sponsored content January 28, 2020 Art: Oroubouros, Lucas Jennis, 1625The online media landscape is looking really bleak these days. Countless layoffs, downsizing, and news outlets closing....
  11. Logs were our lifeblood. Now they're our liability. September 23, 2019 In the beginning, writes Jay Kreps, co-founder of Confluent and co-creator of Kafka, there was the log. which WeWork, now imploding, still does not needA log...
  12. Greta on mute September 26, 2019 Like a lot of people, I’ve been following Greta Thunberg over the past couple of months. As the press hype around her has grown to a fervor pitch, I’ve been...
  13. The death of the last comment section on the internet September 30, 2019 Vicki’s note: This is a post by request from Rian, who runs the Elezea newsletter, which you should definitely check out. As always, please send me requests...
  14. How do you like THAT, Elon Musk? October 3, 2019 (Vicki’s note: 👋 Hello new followers who came from the Stack Overflow Newsletter and Elezea! I’m a data scientist in Philadelphia and this newsletter is...
  15. How much I make running a paid newsletter October 7, 2019 Social media platforms are becoming bigger than ever (Facebook claims 2.4 billion monthly active users),but it’s harder to find any real people on there....
  16. Backing up our lives on Dropbox October 10, 2019 Vicki B🎃ykis @vboykis"Dropbox brings your files together, in one central place. They’re easy to find and safely synced across all your devices." Natalia...
  17. The curse of being Big on the Internet October 11, 2019 I first came across Siraj Raval around 2016, when a data scientist friend sent me his video. “This is ridiculous,” he said, and I had to agree that it was....
  18. Neural nets are just people all the way down October 16, 2019 When I was in seventh grade, we had to take a class called home ec. Everyone brushed it off as a super easy class. “All you have to do is cook and sew,”...
  19. The beautiful grind October 18, 2019 I’m coming up on being halfway done with my second maternity leave (😩), and since I spend all day on maternity leave, I also spend a lot of time thinking...
  20. Our bosses live in our phones October 22, 2019 For a couple years now, I’ve been trying to figure out who owns my phone. Not physically. I know for sure that I overpaid Apple for the privilege of...
  21. Open thread: Using Big Tech tools October 23, 2019 Howdy everyone! It’s been a while since I did one of these. The last one about good recommenders ended up being a great discussion, so please chime in. I got...
  22. Imgur is bad now October 25, 2019 Every night in the seven minutes between when I go to sleep and the baby wakes up for the first time, I scroll through the Imgur app to wind down. Silly...
  23. I spent $1 billion and all I got was a Rubik's cube October 29, 2019 Art: David HinnebuschLast week, I saw this tweet come across my timeline: OpenAI @OpenAIWe've trained an AI system to solve the Rubik's Cube with a human-...
  24. Eric Schmidt and the great revolving door November 1, 2019 Last year, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, gave an interview to Tyler Cowen, who runs the long-standing contrarian economics blog Marginal...
  25. Die Gedanken sind frei November 4, 2019 In the late 1700s, a student folk song floating around in Germany was finally written down and put to music. It was called “Die Gedanken sind frei,”...
  26. The highest-interest bank account November 8, 2019 When the Iron Curtain came down on the Soviet Union after World War II and all capitalist influences were kicked out, it was a travesty for the population....
  27. Edward Snowden and our great cross-hatch November 12, 2019 A couple of housekeeping items before today’s post: Thank you to Ben for this beautiful logo! Do you like it? I really do. I think it embodies the spirit of...
  28. Open thread: Is whistleblowing ever ok? November 13, 2019 Yesterday’s post about Snowden seemed be controversial (although I didn’t intend for it to be.) So now I’m curious: if you take him as a personality out of...
  29. The price of good journalism November 15, 2019 Earlier this week, American journalists put together and circulated a spreadsheet of media salaries in Google Sheets. This kind of thing is becoming a lot...
  30. What's up with Russia's internet November 19, 2019 There are several ways the internet as we know it today could end.It could end with an established capitalist panopticon that monitors what we’re doing and...
  31. Twitter still works, in spite of Twitter July 26, 2019 This week, Twitter rolled out a website redesign that’s apparently been a year in the making. It features ginormous buttons, frenzied efforts to get you to...
  32. I wanna be in the black box where it happens July 29, 2019 In the popular Hamilton musical, a singing Aaron Burr, left out of negotiations on the Compromise of 1790, laments in “The Room Where it Happens,”No one else...
  33. Selling Apple to babies July 31, 2019 A couple years ago when my husband and I were staring new parenthood dead in the face at 3:45 a.m., we resolved not to read any baby books, so as to not go...
  34. Thread: Which companies do you trust? August 2, 2019 On Monday, I wrote about how most company decision-making processes, particularly those that generate the algorithms that shape our online lives, are...
  35. Selling data science August 6, 2019 In one of my last newsletters, I linked to a Reddit thread, “How does data science work in the consulting space?” and said that if there was enough interest,...
  36. The Trelloing of marriage August 9, 2019 A couple months ago, Austen, who runs YC Combinator company Lambda School, which provides a free tech bootcamp education until you get a job (and then you...
  37. Do we need tech management books? August 12, 2019 Several months ago, everyone on my Twitter feed started talking about An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson, an engineering...
  38. I'd do anything for tech, but I won't do that August 14, 2019 I came across this (well-aged) tweet a couple days ago and it really resonated with me, because I find myself doing a lot of these things also:🖖Jochen Mader...
  39. Thread: Favorite business fiction August 16, 2019 I wrote earlier this week that I didn’t see the need for most business books (although I got quite a few managers emailing me, letting me know that they DO...
  40. Baby-friendly ho$pital$ August 19, 2019 Author’s note: This newsletter takes a while to get to the tech tie-in, but I promise it’s there. This is an issue that’s super important to me these days....
  41. All my dongles August 22, 2019 Ever since I got the iPhone 8 last year, I’ve had a dongle problem. The dongle is the stupidest decision Apple has made in the last five years (other than...
  42. Measuring unhappiness August 26, 2019 Note: This is the second part of however many I feel like in a series about data science consulting. Check out the first part, on selling data science, here....
  43. No photos please August 28, 2019 Lately, my Facebook feed is a ghost town. I don’t mean that no one posts on it anymore, just that when I scroll through it, I get no information from it....
  44. Thread: WeWork, dongles, and Demo Day August 30, 2019 There is so much Normcore-y stuff going on lately that I couldn’t decide on a single topic for this week. Consider this is an open invite to discuss any of...
  45. Le Tweet, C'est Moi September 3, 2019 On Friday, hackers took over Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's account and tweeted racial slurs for about fifteen minutes until Twitter finally shut them down. The...
  46. Books I'm reading lately September 6, 2019 I’m not sure how, but I’m still managing to do some reading. Must be all those late-night feeding sessions where I blearily stare at my phone screen for 20...
  47. Between sales and execution culture September 10, 2019 Vicki’s Note: This is the third part in a series on data science and consulting, a topic near and dear to my heart, since I work in consulting and do data...
  48. Was the meeting worth it? September 13, 2019 Earlier this week, the baby slept for four hours in a row, and I started getting crazy ideas, like taking a 10-minute shower and starting to work on some...
  49. Silicon Valley runs on Saudi September 16, 2019 Vicki’s Note: I actually wrote this before I even went on maternity leave and originally had this scheduled to go out on Tuesday, but due to recent events in...
  50. Sorry, I won't hire you September 19, 2019 I saw this Twitter thread a couple days ago (thanks, Stas!), and I’ve been thinking about it ever since: Toxic @toxicIf I see palantir on a resume, I trash...
  51. Kim Karda$hian's cash June 7, 2019 Happy Friday, let’s do a fun celebrity thinkpiece newsletter today. :)One thing that takes up a (startlingly) significant amount of my time is thinking of...
  52. Two Python paths June 10, 2019 As I wrote previously, Python is at a bit of a fork in the road as to where it’s headed as a modern language. The latest indicator of changes is the two...
  53. Are you a leader or a psycho? June 12, 2019 I got a request from Neil to do a newsletter on leadership, so here I am, ready to do some Thought Leading. (By the way, requests on topics are always...
  54. I survived the Aladdin trailer June 14, 2019 A man with a singular vision, working and inspiring a small team of experts out of a garage in California. Technologically ahead of their time, experimenting...
  55. The dark side of the mean June 17, 2019 Poor data - it’s been subject to almost every analogy in the world lately. It’s been called the new oil, the new currency, and the new electricity. Can’t we...
  56. The life and times of LinkedIn Oleg June 19, 2019 Oleg came into my life sometime in 2018. I was scrolling aimlessly through LinkedIn, the social network of last resort that I read when I’ve read all of...
  57. You don't need Kafka June 21, 2019 A couple days ago, I was perusing the excellent Data Engineering Weekly newsletter (which I highly recommend subscribing to if you’re in the industry), when...
  58. Bearing the internet on our shoulders June 24, 2019 In (the very unfortunately titled, but strongly recommended) Broad Band (site, GoodReads) , Claire Evans interviews some of the women who shaped the modern...
  59. The two faces of tech June 26, 2019 In 2013, a couple months after the Edward Snowden story broke, I attended Strata, a data conference run by O’Reilly (the animal book people). Big data was...
  60. Death by kipple June 28, 2019 I saw this phrase in a piece about adulting a couple months ago and I haven’t been able to forget it: “reverse cardboard origami” - the process of breaking...
  61. On Marcus and friends July 1, 2019 Very frequently, aka every time I log onto my (any one of) my banks’ websites, I’ll be greeted with something like this: Vicki Boykis @vboykisHow I imagine...
  62. Beach reads July 3, 2019 It’s the Fourth of July in the United States this week, Canada Day in Canada, and, just, generally, summer. In honor of a crazy slow period, I thought I’d...
  63. The reign of Big Recsys July 8, 2019 If you’ve ever used YouTube’s autoplay feature, Amazon’s “More Like This”, anything on Netflix, or used Facebook’s News Feed, you’ve used one of the most...
  64. Housekeeping: Help improve Normcore Tech! July 9, 2019 Hey readers! Two quick things today. 1. Reader Survey I’ve been at this newsletter game a little over a month now, and would like some feedback on how I’m...
  65. The Phoenix Project July 11, 2019 I read tech/management books much in the same way that other people (also me) read gossip magazines or watch CNN: to try and understand the ridiculousness of...
  66. Big Recsys Redux: Recs at Netflix July 15, 2019 I wrote about recommender systems last week, but there is so much discussion around their effects right now in the mainstream tech press that they deserve a...
  67. Housekeeping: The survey results! July 16, 2019 Thank you to everyone who completed the survey! It’s been immensely helpful, and in the spirit of Radical Transparency, here are the results (sorry about the...
  68. Are there ANY good recommenders? July 18, 2019 This week, I got an excellent question from a reader (keep them coming!). Paul writes, Following up on your two posts about recsys I can imagine that you...
  69. Normcore maternity 🐣 July 22, 2019 Like I wrote on Twitter this weekend, I had a baby boy! Vicki Boykis @vboykisSome personal news: I had a baby this weekend! 👶 Everyone is healthy, we are...
  70. The deep thoughts of Cal Newport July 23, 2019 A couple years ago, I started hearing more and more about Cal Newport, a professor at Georgetown who wrote a book called “Deep Work”. In the book, he says...
  71. Welcome to Normcore Tech May 20, 2019 I’m Vicki, and I like to think about technology in all sorts of different ways. At work, I’m a data science consultant working with a wide variety of...
  72. Remember when Paul Graham was right? May 20, 2019 Paul Graham, one of the most respected voices in Silicon Valley, both from the business and technology side, recently wrote: His replies soon became a chorus...
  73. Our beautiful, broken internet May 22, 2019 Thanks to everyone for subscribing! Let’s get this party started. Source. In a recent, beautiful piece at Wired magazine, “Why I Still Love Tech”, Paul Ford...
  74. The commoditization of data science May 24, 2019 The Factory at Asnieres, Van Gogh, 1887One of my favorite subreddits is (sorry in advance) r/programmingcirclejerk, because it offers a place to call out...
  75. We're taking it very seriously May 27, 2019 Fire Dance, Paul Gaughin 1891Wishing everyone in the U.S. a meaningful and relaxing Memorial Day Weekend. Everyone except First American Financial Corp. On...
  76. Python's Caduceus syndrome May 29, 2019 This year, according to StackOverflow’s annual survey, Python became the second-most beloved programming language (behind Rust, which is the language people...
  77. How do you fake a tornado? May 30, 2019 I spent a few tense hours last night with my preschooler in our basement because of a tornado warning area, so let’s talk weather. The past couple years have...
  78. 🎶 Summertime and the working is constant June 5, 2019 Happy June! The weather here in Philly has been perfect the past couple of days, and in between washing chalk off my driveway and buying watermelon every...
  79. It's only a joke, Twitter June 3, 2019 There’s something about the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge that is super motivating for me in a way that other challenges are not. Every year, I set a...