“The End of the World is Just the Beginning” is a weird book by Peter Zeihan — self-described as an “optimist, green, internationalist, and democrat” — who retells us a mix-mash of history, geography, economy and chemistry lessons taught in school, then declares that the +
How to choose your running shoes or sandals after you’ve done your homework and narrowed the choice to 3-4 pairs? run in each pair — which one gives you the childish sensation of flight? reduce to 2 pairs — put a different shoe on each +
Car-centric urban planning in North America creates nations of stay-at-home-gamers “under adequate supervision” that fail to acquire social interaction skills till the age of 16 (when they can get a driver’s license)… So their 20′s and 30′s are spent being a teenager, “discovering the world +
Disappointed by Carlo Rovelli’s “Order of Time”. Reads more like a physicist’s hobby project in creative writing (though quite a poetic one)… rather than a container of eye-opening, bleeding-edge information. Main ideas: time is quantized, entropy increases with time, time is local and relative, we +
I wonder how much time architects spend writing instead of designing? The typical text that describes a random contemporary house is something else… “Architecture, specifically the house, is an act of enabling shelter, a vessel through which in turn enables habitation and the ongoing experience +
I’ve been wondering about indirect IQ measurements. One of them, is… smoking. Yes, people still smoke tobacco in 2022. A lot of people. 🤢 Cigarette smokers have lower IQs than non-smokers, and the more a person smokes, the lower their IQ. For example, this study +
You know what’s “special” about “an operation”? It’s when it CREATES something new. A piece of art: a film, a book, a soundtrack. A scientific discovery. A technological breakthrough. A medical procedure that allows us to walk hours after appendectomy. A business that transforms us +
They: don’t go to a “studio” — they practice at home / office / traveling… daily, wearing whatever or semi-naked (no “yoga” apparel) sit in siddhasana / padmasana casually “because it’s comfy” while talking / eating / typing — optimize for meditation, not circus acrobatics +
I’ve always wondered: how does it feel to be an Apple macOS developer? You can’t isolate yourself from the ‘official’ bug reports, or the ‘unofficial’, but very vocal and public grudges on Twitter, about the character / emojis palette random misbehavior since, when, 2014? Or +
“Neurotypicality is a pervasive developmental condition, probably present since birth, in which the affected person sees the world in a very strange manner. It is a puzzle; a enigma that traps those so affected in a lifelong struggle for social status and recognition. Neurotypical individuals +
Do you know how the aviation industry improved to become the safest mode of transportation? Debriefings of incidents and accidents. Do we debrief our failed relationships? No. Do we improve? No. We get into the same cockpit of a 1970′s McDonnell Douglas DC-10 saying “oh, +
Annoyed by Apple’s Books.app quoting, trimming and appending an “Excerpt From” when copying a small passage from an ePub? Did you know ePubs are a collection of HTML files? 🤓 Open the folder containing the books. If you use iCloud, type open ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/iCloud~com~apple~iBooks/Documents/ in +
We, humans, have a physical body problem. And it’s not a postmodern “obese body positivity” problem. It’s a “people are either over-clothed (men), or under-dressed (women)” problem. +
“The Art of Impossible” by Steven Kotler is a perfect example of a book by a journalist who does punchy write-ups of other books written by other punchy journalists who cite popular self-hack writers (like Tim Ferriss, whose advice is retold several times), who talk +
“When things get tough with that rewrite, and you’re starting to see this whole dream fall apart… who are the ones that actually stay in for the long haul? Often it’s narcissists. Often it’s people with big egos. It’s people who really think they’re interesting. +
These days, you can super-quickly gauge a person by inquiring about their opinion on: Covid-19 vaccines climate change religion (especially Islam) UBI (Universal Basic Income) equality of outcome (especially gender issues) body fat over 30% Superb predictive power, eh? +
7,8 billion people currently live on our planet. Only 114 million have been confirmed as infected by Covid-19. That’s less than 2%. The virus will keep eating through the remaining 98% for years. As most governments… or, more accurately, we don’t care enough about others +
Why would you want to improve yourself, others and the world? — To experience less pain and suffering… especially when you interact with reality. If all is great in your life and you’re content with everything, then don’t improve, stay the same. But even the greatest, +
Instagram is a great tool to get to know people. Open a profile and: Scroll through their posts — sample their taste (or lack thereof), attention to detail (feet cut off, random branches in the frame, etc.) Pay attention to the number of selfies — +
There’s this idea that only women “test” their men. Nah. Men test their women as well. And it’s OK to test early, test often. Even testing to failure. Like we do in engineering. But what’s really important is the quality of those tests. Because the +
TIP: To print images, enable “Print backgrounds” in your browser preferences.