And while this may sound like a chore
Five fragments for the week of November 25, 2024
Hello from Thanksgiving week here in the U.S. I’m Diana Kimball Berlin, a partner at Matrix leading concept through Series A rounds in B2B SaaS and AI startups.
I’m grateful for so many things, but one of them is certainly this place to reconnect with you and my interests each week; it’s become quite special to me over the course of this year. Thank you for being here.
And now, here are five fragments that stuck with me last week…
Active matrix is a type of addressing scheme used in flat panel displays. It is a method of switching individual elements of a flat panel display, known as pixels. Each pixel is attached to a transistor and capacitor that actively maintain the pixel state while other pixels are being addressed, in contrast with the older passive matrix technology in which each pixel must maintain its state passively, without being driven by circuitry.
– “Active matrix” on Wikipedia. Was struck by the evocative title of this image collection and wanted to go one click deeper, not least because of the “matrix” in the name. For some reason this reminds me of the relentless entreaties in fitness classes to “activate your core.”
Despite early doubts that preprint distribution would be relevant outside of high-energy physics, its history has been one of continuous growth into new fields, catalysed by occasional spikes. For example, focused interest in magnesium diboride superconductors in 2001, and later iron pnictide superconductors starting in 2008, led the associated experimental communities to use arXiv to report breaking results and stake precedence claims. More recently, the machine learning community adopted arXiv en masse around 2015. These researchers remain dedicated users; so far, no community that has adopted arXiv for rapid dissemination has since abandoned it.
– Paul Ginsparg, “Lessons from arXiv’s 30 years of information sharing,” August 4, 2021. Decided to dig into arXiv‘s history in anticipation of my upcoming wardrobe addition and was struck by this claim—“so far, no community that has adopted arXiv for rapid dissemination has since abandoned it.” A good example of the durability of network effects.
Think of Personas as the soul of a song. They capture the vocals, energy, and atmosphere of a track and allow you to store that signature “essence” as a unique creative asset. Whether it’s the sultry feel of a slow ballad or the high-energy vibe of an upbeat anthem, Personas enable you to keep those distinct elements and apply them to new creations.
– Ali Saadeddine, “Introducing Personas: One style, infinite tracks,” Suno blog, October 31, 2024. Suno v4 came out last week, including a rev of their Personas feature. This is a good summary of what it means to isolate a “vibe” in latent space. I’m also just happy the Matrix portfolio is chock full of tools for imagination.
To scale myself, I distilled my most common writing feedback into a GPT called “The Executive Editor” (try it here). This tool allows my team to paste in their emails, decks, or Slack messages and receive a letter grade on structure, clarity, level of detail, and tone, along with actionable recommendations for improvement. […] And while this may sound like a chore (who enjoys being graded?), my team has found it invaluable.
– Hilary Gridley, “How to become a supermanager with AI,” Lenny’s Newsletter, November 19, 2024. I’m a big fan of Hilary’s and was delighted to see this post come out—it’s full of real insight from the trenches + ideas for practical actions any manager can take today. This insight struck me in particular; I believe there’s a common misconception that people are allergic to being judged, when actually it’s judgment that comes from power or with consequences that bothers people. AI gets around all that, relaying perspective without activating so much fear.
Design commenced with Christopher Alexander asking Andre Sala to close his eyes and describe “the most beautiful and comfortable room you can remember.” The center of the home is a farmhouse-style kitchen based on Andre Sala’s memory of the farmhouse that he had visited as a boy in the south of France.
– “Sala House” on Wikipedia, documenting the first house in the United States designed and built by Christopher Alexander (author of A Pattern Language). Came across the article in my old internet pal Buster Benson’s latest annual review post—he bought this house and now lives in it, which is mind-bending to me. I love the idea of building rooms based on memories, which surely have softer edges than facts.
Until next time,
Diana
https://dianaberlin.com