links 8/24/26: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/08-24-2026

• • https://ameliorate.app/ collaborative discussion tool. i find it maybe a little too feature-heavy?
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot wild if true
  • https://roblh.substack.com/p/the-new-artillery-shell-factory-is Rob L'Heureux on how a new artillery shell factory failed: they put in a bunch of new automated lines all at once without testing the machines bit by bit to see if they worked on the metal in question. production went to zero; worker safety was a nightmare. the mandate to go "fast" was imposed by an executive with no manufacturing experience. this is the sort of thing that gives technology a bad name. yes, modernizing nearly century-old military manufacturing facilities is still necessary, and yes, the default way of doing business is slow and sclerotic, but what people outside manufacturing don't understand is that no machine can be assumed to "just work" upon delivery. new manufacturing processes need to be developed by experiment. new vendors need to be qualified by testing. This isn't Ikea. developing a new manufacturing process is like developing a new drug (another thing laymen don't seem to realize is nontrivial, actually... i'm not sure what a truly relatable analogy for a pure finance/sales exec would be!)
  • https://jasmi.news/p/abdul-el-sayed-on-ai these quotes are kind of infuriating. the guy just thinks, "well, I don't like AI, I don't think my constituents like AI, so we won't allow data centers."
    • What's missing in the discourse is capitalists making the case that it's none of your business whether you like it or not. It's between the sellers and buyers (of land, labor, software products, and so on.) You, as a bystander, should not get to shout "stop!" at what people do with their own property, just because you're worried it'll change your culture or put your job at risk. You do not even get to demand that people reassure you or sell you on the benefits of a deal. It is None of your Beeswax. It is Not Up To You. It is Not Your Money.
    • of course, legally, local governments do have the power to make these kinds of decisions, and I suppose they will. Nobody likes being told that stuff they don't like is going to happen in their neighborhood.
    • But, frankly, I have to accept noisy neighbors, loud music in public spaces, ugly buildings, crappy movies and TV, and so on, because the basic human rules of interaction are that other people's business is not up to me, and because my tastes are niche enough and my personality introverted enough that I couldn't really expect to get my way by being a busybody. If you're more of a "normie", I suppose you never learn that lesson! But it is conspicuously unfair. When you don't like something, you get to ruin it for the people who do; when I don't like something, it's my own problem.
      • we have centuries of legal tradition working out how to adjudicate conflicting preferences, and it doesn't just boil down to a popularity contest! this is why property exists, so that some things are "mine" and not your place to interfere with, and other things are "yours" and not my place to interfere with!
      • but to this guy, "most people" don't like a thing, and the people who do like it are "rich", and that's all there is to say.