SNL’s new skit: Elon Musk Cold Open is chef’s kiss perfect.
Dave Anderson: The Six Steps to Saying No
Scarlet Ink is a newsletter by Dave Anderson, and here’s a quote from its About page:
Scarlet Ink educates both technology veterans and newcomers on how to grow their careers, build their leadership capabilities, and level up their interviewing skills.
I read a lot of newsletters and often find myself with more articles to read than time available and Scarlet Ink is often one that I choose to read later. That’s probably because I already spend so much time thinking about work I’d rather spend my free time reading about my hobbies or other interests. But the value to time-spent I get from his articles is incredibly high. Even better, the hit-rate for relevancy in my day is also high. That was again the case today when I read The Six Steps to Saying No — Why Being a Team Player is Not Necessarily Great. The relevant paragraph to me today was:
There’s a popular saying at tech companies. We say that our work is a marathon, not a sprint. That means that we’re out to create value over years, not over months. If you’re expected to do something which cannot be sustained for years, it’s a defect, and it should absolutely be temporary.
Here’s a parting quote that nearly perfectly describes me:
There’s a common illness in the workplace. It’s called being a “team player.” A team player does the extra work that is falling on the floor. The team player stays late to ensure that the weekly sprint completes on schedule. The team player comes in on Saturday to shepherd the new build. The team player also burns out and quits.
Simon Willison: Hallucinations in code are the least dangerous form of LLM mistakes
A new post by Simon Willison nearly perfectly captures my current thoughts on how to understand the shortcomings of using LLMs to write code.
Hallucinations in code are the least harmful hallucinations you can encounter from a model. The real risk from using LLMs for code is that they’ll make mistakes that aren’t instantly caught by the language compiler or interpreter. And these happen all the time!
One thing I’ve learned building Conductor is compilation errors are the easiest to fix. Most of the time all that’s needed is to give the LLM the error and it will fix itself. If that doesn’t work, I can prompt my way towards a fix. Self-healing or prompting solve 99% of all of these types of errors. Making sure that the code actually does what I intended is an entirely different thing.
Also from Simon:
A general rule for programming is that you should never trust any piece of code until you’ve seen it work with your own eye—or, even better, seen it fail and then fixed it.
This is increasingly less common with the proliferation of LLM-enabled code generation. We’re thinking of ways to “bake in” this process into the systems we’re building but it’s a really hard problem.
In his latest podcast, Bill Simmon’s talks to Susan Morrison about her book about Lorne Michaels, creator and producer of SNL. Conversations with people who are deeply passionate about the topics are my favorite to listen in too and this was that.
Daring Fireball: The iPhone 16e is an iPhone for people who don't want to think much about their phone
John Gruber, at Daring Fireball, is my favorite iPhone reviewer. His reviews are honest but ever so slightly skewed in Apple’s favor. As an Apple fan that’s what I want to read. I don’t want to read how an iPhone compares against a random Android phone because I would never buy that random Android phone and I’d never recommend anyone who asks me to buy it either. When I read an iPhone review I want to read about the iPhone and that’s what John does. So what’s his thoughts on the iPhone 16e, this sums it up best:
The iPhone 16e is an iPhone for people who don’t want to think much about their phone. But they do want an iPhone, not just any “whatever” phone. A just plain iPhone, with a good screen, good enough (and simple) camera, and great battery life. I think Apple nailed that with the iPhone 16e.
Another reason why I enjoy reading his reviews are these little tidbits:
(Also take note of a clever touch: Apple’s default wallpapers for each phone subtly suggest how many camera lenses they have.)
His reviews often have a least a couple and each of them make me smile.
DeepEval: Unit Testing Your AI Products
While building Conductor we’ve often struggled to make sure we haven’t introduced regressions when changing system prompts, etc. Manually testing sort of works but we often don’t have the time to test the entire feature set. We have integration tests but they also don’t cover the entire feature set.
Enter DeepEval. We’ve only recently started to implement DeepEval but the vision of the future is clear. DeepEval lets you “unit test” features of LLM-enabled software. It’s open-source and comes with a lot of useful tools built-in. It’s a little finicky to get started but the learning curve is not that steep.
Wrestling Contradictions
At the top of my list of favorite things I’ve read in 2025 is this piece published in the New York Times Opinion: [My Father Was a Conservative Evangelical Paster. Than I Came Out](My Father Was a Conservative Evangelical Pastor. Then I Came Out.).
What I found in my dad’s journals gave me a deep appreciation for what it takes for people to really change their minds — what it means to confront the limits of their faith, to risk their career, their standing in the community, even to question the foundations of all that they believed to be true.
The story takes us through a father’s journey of reconciling his beliefs against his reality, through his private journal entries. There were two things that stood out to me: the unfettered honesty of the journal entries and the process of truly confronting your beliefs.
NFL 2025 Playoffs 4 (Super Bowl)
NFL 2025 Playoffs 4 (Super Bowl)
Third week of the playoffs and I’m 10-2 thus far. No ATS picks, all moneyline. My picks will be listed first and the home team will be in CAPS.
Super Bowl:
Chiefs vs Eagles ❌
NFL 2025 Playoffs Week 3
Third week of the playoffs and I’m 9-1 thus far. No ATS picks, all moneyline. My picks will be listed first and the home team will be in CAPS.
AFC:
Bills at CHIEFS ❌
NFC:
EAGLES vs Commanders ✅
NFL 2025 Playoffs Week 2
Second week of the playoffs and I went 6-0 last week. No ATS picks, all moneyline. My picks will be listed first and the home team will be in CAPS.
AFC:
CHIEFS vs Texans ✅
BILLS vs Ravens ✅
NFC:
LIONS vs Commanders ❌
EAGLES vs Rams ✅
NFL 2025 Playoffs Week 1
First week of the playoffs, and I’ll attempt to pick my the winners of each game. No ATS picks, all moneyline. My picks will be listed first and the home team will be in CAPS.
AFC:
TEXANS vs Chargers ✅
RAVENS vs Steelers ✅
BILLS vs Broncos ✅
NFC:
Commanders at BUCS ✅
RAMS vs Vikings ✅
EAGLES vs Packers ✅
NFL 2024 Playoffs Week 2
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
Texans +9.5 at RAVENS — Go Texans!
49ERS -9.5 vs. Packers — Nice run by the Packers but the 49ers are too good.
LIONS moneyline over Bucs — The Lions impressive season continues.
BILLS moneyline over Chiefs — Lets go Buffalo!
Last week: 3-3
NFL 2024 Playoffs Week 1
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
Steelers +9.5 at BILLS — Too many points in such bad weather. ❌ The game was moved!
Dolphins +4.5 at CHIEFS — I don’t think the Chiefs have it this year. ❌ I haven’t change my mind about the Chiefs but, man, Tua just collapses in the cold.
Packers +7 at COWBOYS — I think the Packers could win this game so it checks Simmon’s manifesto. ✅ Wow
TEXANS moneyline over Browns — Go Texans! ✅ CJ is HIM
BUCS moneyline over Eagles — I agree with Nick Wright, this Eagles team is cooked ✅ I’m still not sure how they collapsed as hard and fast as they did
Rams moneyline over LIONS — I keep hearing how good the Rams are so I’m picking them. ❌ Nothing really to say
NFL 2023 Week 14
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
Texans –3.5 at JETS — I’m going to continue to ride this Texans team. No Tank Dell does worry me a bit though. ❌ The Texans didn’t show up this game.
Lions –3.5 at BEARS — Bill Simmons took the other side of this, which I just don’t understand. The Bears aren’t a good football team and the Lions are. ❌ Just a bad pick.
CHIEFS, Bills over 49 –108 — I’m not sure who I like to win this game but I do think it’ll be a shoot-out. ❌
Last week: 1–2
NFL 2023 Week 13
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
BUCCANEERS -5 vs. Panthers — The Panthers are far and away the worst team in the league this year. I’m a bit worried about “new coach theory” here but I still like the Bucs to cover. ❌ I’m not too made about this, I was on the right side of this.
TEXANS -3 vs. Broncos — After a rough loss, and a sloppy game, last week I expect the Texans to bounce back this week ending the Broncos winning streak. I don’t think that turnover differential holds in this game, CJ just doesn’t turn the ball over. ✅ Go Texans!
EAGLES moneyline vs. 49ers +136 — Give me the team that went to the Super Bowl last year and has been the best team all year. ❌ Ouch.
Last week: 0-2-1
NFL 2023 Week 12
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
CARDINALS +2.5 vs. Rams — The Rams didn’t look good last week and I think Kyler is going to win a few games by himself this year, this might be one of them. ❌
EAGLES -3 vs. Bills — This Bills team just doesn’t “have it” this year. ➡️
TEXANS +1.5 vs. Jaguars — This Texans team does “have it” and I think they’ll win this game. ❌ After a few days to think about it, I think we should’ve gone for it on 4th & 12 instead of trying a 58 yard field goal.
Last week: 0-5
NFL 2023 Week 11
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
LIONS -7.5 vs. Bears — The Lions should rout this Bears team. ❌ Somehow they barely escaped with a win. What a dreadful game from Goff.
Seahawks -1 at Rams — I think the Seahawks are a better team and I expect them to win and if they do I’ll at least push ❌ McVay really does have Pete's number
Josh Jacobs anytime TD, Aaron Jones anytime TD parley +351 — Long-shot but I like these odds ❌ Still not unhappy with the bet
Chiefs/Eagles over 45.5, Travis Kelce anytime TD, A.J Brown anytime TD parley +425 — I think this is a high-scoring game and the best offense players on both teams score a TD, not much more too it ❌ This wasn’t very close to hitting but I still feel like it should've
Jared Goff over 1.5 passing TDs, Jared Goff over 276.5 passing yards +154 — I expect a big game from Goff, the Bears have been bad against the pass all season. ❌ See above
Last week: 4-1
This week: 0–5
Season to date: 14–32
NFL 2023 Week 10
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
Texans +6.5 at BENGALS — I think the Texans could win this game but I love the back-door cover potential here ✅ Go Texans!
COWBOYS -17 vs. Giants — The last time these teams played the Cowboys won by 40 and that Giants team had Daniel Jones playing QB. I expect this game to be just as bad ✅ The Cowboys really beat up on bad teams
Lions -3 at CHARGERS, Jared Goff over 225 passing yards +138 — I like the Lions to cover and the only way that happens is if Goff has a big game ✅ The line pushed but Goff had a huge game
Giants under 10.5 points, Tommy DeVito under 0.5 passing TDs +130 — See above, I don’t think this Giants team will be able to move the ball. ❌ They scored on the Cowboys 3rd string defense, I should’ve seen that coming
COWBOYS over 3.5 team TDs +150 — Tripling down on this game for all the same reasons. ✅
Last week: 1-4
This week: 4–1
Season to date: 14–27
NFL 2023 Week 8
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
Jags –2.5 at STEELERS — The Jags might be really good ✅ They might be really good
Bears +8.5 at CHARGERS — I don’t expect the Bears to win but I don’t think the Chargers should be favored this much against anybody. ❌ The Bears are back! (to being really bad as they should be)
COLTS +2, Jonathan Taylor anytime TD parley +200 — I sort of expect the Colts to win this game and for JT in his second week to have a big game ❌ Neither of these happened...
Texans moneyline, Tank Dell over 46.5 yards +186 — The Texans shouldn’t lose this game and CJ Stroud loves throwing to Tank Dell whose back in the lineup this week. ❌ What a terrible terrible loss
Chiefs moneyline, Travis Kelce anytime TD, Patrick Mahomes over 274.5 yards +284 — Mahomes hasn’t lost to the Broncos in his entire career, I expect a blowout by the Chiefs. ❌ I guess there’s a first for everything
Last week: 1-4
This week: 1–4
Season to date: 10–26
NFL 2023 Week 7
My pick: listed first. Home team: CAPS. Post-game comments, if any, in italics.
Packers –1 at BRONCOS — I think the Broncos have already packed it up for this season ❌ Shouldn’t trust a “rookie” QB
Bills -9 at PATRIOTS — The Pats might be the worst team in the league. ❌ Are we sure Josh Allen is good?
CHIEFS/Chargers over 47.5 points and Justin Herbert over 225 passying yards +108 — I expect a lot of offense in this game ✅ This played out like I thought it would
BEARS/Raiders under 37.5 points and Tyson Bagent under 184.5 passing yards — These are 2 QBs who shouldn’t be starting in the NFL, I don’t expect many points ❌ Congrats to the Bears
RAMS moneyline, SEAHAWKS money line, Jared Goff over 175 passing yards parley +118 — I love everything about this but the Rams but I think Kenny Picket gives it away in the end ❌ He did not give it away in the end
Last week: 1–4
This week: 2–3
Season to date: 9–22