Four short links: 1 May 2019
Intermediate Vim, Newsletter Numbers, Automating Assessment, and Financial Modeling
- Intermediate Vim — a few tips to level up your editing skills from beginner to intermediate.
- Newsletters Can Be Profitable (Buzzfeed) — Substack’s 12 top-earning writers make an average of more than $160,000 each, the company told BuzzFeed News. And more than 40,000 people are paying for Substack newsletters today.
- Final Draft to Assess Against Bechdel Test (NYT) — In an update announced Thursday, Final Draft—software that writers use to format scripts—said it will now include a proprietary “Inclusivity Analysis” feature, allowing filmmakers “to quickly assign and measure the ethnicity, gender, age, disability, or any other definable trait of the characters,” including race, the company said in a statement. It also will enable users to determine if a project passes the Bechdel Test, measuring whether two female characters speak to each other about anything other than a man. The faster people get feedback, the more effect it has. I expect this to have significant effect on scripts. (via Marginal Revolution)
- How Pharmaceutical Industry Financial Modelers Think About Your Rare Disease — Today in “how to see with the eyes of a specialist.” To me, the biggest lesson from playing with this model has been to observe just how profoundly the lag time and probability of success shape the financial picture of drug development.