my story 🚀
PSA: Don’t forget that many credit cards offer nice perks like automatic extended warranties! My laptop failed yesterday after only 18 months old of service. I bought it on Amazon using my prime card. I was kicking myself for not buying it on an Amex, but then decided to be thorough and double-check. It turns out the Prime card (via Chase) has an extra year of warranty built in, covering most of my Amazon purchases.
fun facts 🙌
The man who remembered everything and thought it was normal. This is really interesting because he had synesthesia (multiple senses activate concurrently, i.e. can smell colors). Moreover, his memory was greatly aided by the same technique as the ancients (chronicled in Moonwalking with Einstein), though he seems to have invented it independently. “One of the most expansive memories ever documented belonged to a Russian newspaper reporter named Solomon Shereshevsky. For much of his life, he was oblivious of the peculiar nature of his memory.” ~ learn more
You cannot photocopy money. “Not just legally, but also literally. Yes, you cannot copy money using the photocopy machine! If you try to print currency notes using any modern printing or scanning devices, they will refuse to assist you in this criminal endeavor. Some might even completely shut down! No matter how much you crumple or fold the note, the machine will still detect the fact that you are trying your hand at counterfeiting.” ~ learn more
How to build the ideal sauna. It turns out that most saunas in the U.S. have shortcomings. “This thing that people in Finland (and Germany, Sweden, Austria, etc.) call a sauna is all about the specific, unique and quite wonderful bather experience it provides – even convective heat caressing bathers bodies, and for Finnish Sauna the contrast of naturally dry air punctuated by bursts of steam. Just because a room is hot doesn’t make it a sauna.” This is incredibly detailed and long. ~ learn more
oh, chicago 🏆
Goodbye, chocolate factory. Many of you will remember catching a whiff of chocolate as you cruised past the Blommer Chocolate factory at 600 W Kinzie. This week, they shut down operations at the factory after 85 years. ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
Prompt design and engineering. This starts out basic and gets complex toward the end. “In this paper, we introduce core concepts, advanced techniques like Chain-of-Thought and Reflection, and the principles behind building LLM-based agents. Finally, we provide a survey of tools for prompt engineers.” ~ learn more
How niche markets are bigger opportunities than VCs think. “Ode to Procore; a case study on niche versus mass-market project management software.” Written by Jackie DiMonte, who happens to be a VC investing in the “niche” market of industrial technology. ~ learn more
to your health ⚕
Surprising negative results of 8-hour time-restricted eating. “A study of over 20,000 adults found that those who followed an 8-hour time-restricted eating schedule, a type of intermittent fasting, had a 91% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease.” The full study has not yet been published, and there are many questions, starting with the way they categorized participants based on two days of dietary recall questionnaires. ~ learn more
retail therapy 💸
The bidet revolution continues. “Four years after the toilet paper shortage of 2020, bidet converts say they’re never going back.” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
Imagine a cow that can produce human insulin in its milk. Researchers from Illinois did, and then they created it. The first mass-market insulin came from livestock. Nowadays it’s largely made by bacteria in reactors. Maybe (long shot) things will go full circle back to livestock? “An unassuming brown bovine from the south of Brazil has made history as the first transgenic cow capable of producing human insulin in her milk. The advancement, led by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Universidade de São Paulo, could herald a new era in insulin production, one day eliminating drug scarcity and high costs for people living with diabetes.” ~ learn more
Using moisture to pull carbon dioxide out of the air. Some of you may remember that I’m a big fan of the idea of direct air capture. “The material could slash the energy costs associated with so-called direct air capture systems, which conventionally rely on energy-intensive temperature or pressure shifts to switch between carbon capture and release. By instead relying on humidity, the material could yield energy efficiency improvements over five times above current technologies.” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
35 trends spotted at Expo West. This is from the “leading trade show in the natural, organic, and healthy products industry.” Tends include blood sugar balance, recovery and sleep as a benefit, and animal protein skins as snacks. ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
Nuclear power’s tailwind in Washington. “Freshly passed legislation and new rules from the Biden administration are putting teeth behind a renewed bipartisan push for nuclear power, which has suffered major setbacks in recent decades despite advocates’ repeated predictions over the years that the industry was on the brink of a renaissance.” ~ learn more
Ocean-based carbon capture. The ocean and air work together to balance the carbon dioxide load. So as the concentration has increased in the air, it has also increased in the ocean. But what if that could work backwards? Planetary Technologies is pursuing the idea. “Planetary’s method adds an alkaline substance to seawater, lowering its acidity in the surrounding marine environment. This then converts the dissolved CO2 into a mineral salt, which will remain in that state for 100,000 years. As the Planetary’s tech reduces the CO2 in the oceans, it can suck in more atmospheric CO2, as part of the natural carbon concentration balancing process.” ~ learn more
Wave-amplifying generator bounces twice as high as the swells. The biggest challenge for offshore wave power is the occasional yet inevitable humungous storm. “CorPower says it's a novel phase control technology called WaveSpring that sets its huge C4 buoys apart. An internal pneumatic cylinder is pre-tensioned to pull the buoy downwards, such that in the absence of active control, the buoy simply sits still in "transparent" mode no matter how high the waves get. This acts as a safety mechanism under the worst conditions.” ~ learn more
on the blockchain ⛓
SEC hands slapped in court. It turns out that even the government is prohibited from misleading the court, at least sometimes. “In Monday’s decision, Shelby denied the SEC’s request, citing multiple instances of “bad faith” conduct and finding the agency responsible for a “gross abuse of power.” In the 80-page filing, Shelby imposed a sanction in the form of a requirement for the agency to pay for DEBT Box’s attorneys’ fees and costs related to the restraining order.” ~ learn more
profiles of people 🚶
How a physics whiz made a fortune betting on nature’s catastrophes. Do you ever wonder who’s taking on that hurricane risk for insured homeowners in Florida? “When thousands of homeowners in Florida and Louisiana purchased their hurricane insurance, they probably had no idea that John Seo stood to make a big profit if their properties got through the next three years unscathed.” ~ learn more
It turns out the Prime card (via Chase) has an extra year of warranty built in, covering most of my Amazon purchases.
Ooh that's great to know! We just ordered a Vitamix and Breville toaster oven on Amazon with that card... Realizing now that we used a bit of Amazon credit we had $40 then the rest on the Amazon Prime card... Thinking we made a mistake here and shouldn't have used any gift card credit for these types of purchases, might have screwed ourselves over... Good tip to be aware of though!