This Week I Learned - Week #25 2025

This Week I Learned - 

* ScyllaDB Team's Database Benchmarking for Performance Masterclass - Best Practices for Running Your Own Tests

* OpenRefine is an open source tool for working with messy data: cleaning it; transforming it from one format into another; and extending it with web services and external data.

* A.I. text generation — which is what chatbots do — used 10 times as much energy compared with simple classification tasks like sorting emails into folders.

People looking for facts are better off just using a search engine, since generative A.I. can “hallucinate” false information.

Longer answers and those that use a reasoning process generate more emissions. - NYT

* There are three major areas where humans either are, or will soon be, more necessary than ever: trust, integration and taste. - NYT

* Y Combinator AI Startup School Highlights

When asked about qualities he looks for in people, Satya Nadella outlined three non-negotiables:

• Clarity builders - who can distill complexity in uncertain times
• Energy creators - who bring people together across organizations
• Problem solvers - who can unconstrain over-constrained situations

* Years ago, most tech executives had the decency to lie about efforts to replace workers with artificial intelligence. That is starting to change: An A.I. startup from San Francisco called Mechanize has the audacious, public goal of automating white-collar jobs as fast as possible.

Mechanize’s approach is based on reinforcement learning — the same method used to train a computer to play the board game Go nearly a decade ago. - NYT

* The report OpenAI Files, is the “most comprehensive collection to date of documented concerns with governance practices, leadership integrity, and organizational culture at OpenAI.”

* Going beyond teaching languages, Duolingo has a new course on Chess! It had launched Math and Music in 2023.

* There are far fewer female grandmasters than male, and women's chess tournaments also tend to have smaller prizes.

* Sam Altman owns 7.5% of Reddit

* Zepto currently has 1,000 dark stores

* India’s 800-plus aircraft fleet is predominantly young, with over half less than five years old and only 13 percent over 15 years old.

* "If your design needs a label, consider another design." - Don Norman,