P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #390
Goats
my story 🚀
i’ve been thinking 💭
✨ OpenAI’s latest release, o1, is better because the system runs a more thorough multi-step process against your prompt, which we can interpret as ‘thinking’. In fact, they call it thinking. Thanks to this thinking, it can now do things like coding a video game from a single prompt. This is pretty impressive, right? But before you non-developers think you can go ahead and do the same, note the part at the end where the person copies the code and pastes it into a file and then executes the file from the terminal of his computer. All of you developers reading this will laugh at how trivial this step is. All of you non-developers will probably recoil at the requirement to touch your computer’s terminal. This example is trivial. In my experience most of the setup to run code is intricate and brittle thanks to heterogeneous systems and the nature of infrastructure. I like to believe there are a ton of code-literate people like me who are blocked from coding because it takes real work to set up a development environment. What happens when this last bit of technical overhead is abstracted away?
fun facts 🙌
Nobody messes with the thing spitting out $20M bonus checks. “One thing that often surprises new hires onto a trading desk is the degree to which they are going to have to support existing processes and facilitate the business of more established traders. The perception is that they will immediately start building new things and producing revenue, and this is generally not true for a couple of reasons…” ~ learn more
The fun scale. The difference between Type I and Type II fund. “Everybody likes fun. And fun, like anything, can be nuanced; not all fun is created equal.” ~ learn more
What is a liminal space? Reddit users explain it to imaginary 5 year olds. “Liminal spaces are often familiar (looking) spaces that you associate a certain function and/or setting with, but you whitness [sic] them in a new or unfamiliar context. A city devoid of people. Your empty childhood home when everything has already been packed and shipped off to your new place. Your school after everyone else left.” ~ learn more
How the Soviets took pictures from the surface of Venus. “The technology they used to capture and transmit images and videos was fascinating, considering the harsh environment of Venus and the limitations of the 1970s and 1980s tech.” ~ learn more
oh, chicago 🏆
How Chicago became so huge. Transportation! By being so close to Lake Michigan and the Des Plaines River, it became a critical connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river. Then came the markets. Then came the railroads. Then came the airports. “It ended with a mesh of rivers, lakes, canals, roads, railroads, airports, and markets that could hardly be rivaled by any other city around it. It became the local hegemon.” ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
A robot for your home. The fact that this is only one of several groups who are about to sell affordable (cheap car priced) robots still blows my mind. “Since 2014 1X Technologies has been building humanoid-like robots. Now, they're revealing their newest robot, NEO, to the world.” ~ learn more
Strawberry alarm clock. The latest version of ChatGPT that I mentioned above is code-named strawberry. Apparently several people think it’s a really big deal. ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
How to restore commitment in bargaining. This economist found sunglasses in Brazil are only available at specialty stores that bargain like US car dealerships — “I’d love do give you this price, let me ask my finance manager.” ~ learn more
to your health ⚕
Alla about ketamine. “Kevin undergoes ketamine therapy on-camera, exploring its efficacy, safety, and the science behind this controversial treatment.” I didn’t watch this whole 2-hour video. I did, however, find Dr. Jennifer Ellice to be a great communicator and this quote felt accurate: “This episode aims to provide a balanced, scientific perspective on a promising but complex treatment option in modern psychiatry, guided by Dr. Ellice’s unique blend of emergency medicine expertise and cutting-edge mental health treatment knowledge.” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
The ultra-selfish gene. This covers gene drives and daisy chain drives, which are pretty new territory for me. “We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with brute force. Doing this to malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly killer.” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
Can processed & deli meats be healthy? Dr. Robin Berzin of Parsley Health: “I realized what an important issue this was to discuss after seeing the reactions to an Instagram story I posted with a photo of a meal I often prep for my kids: High-protein chickpea and turmeric pasta tossed with a high-quality EVOO, cucumbers, and a few slices of—gasp—soppressata. A lot of you freaked out (to put it lightly). Are you seriously eating processed meat? Isn’t soppressata carcinogenic?!” ~ learn more
Banza’s redesign of their mac & cheese line. “What Banza did next should surprise most marketers - they abandoned their RTB and chickpea messaging. But Bazna realized that the category driver in mac & cheese, unlike plain pasta, is indulgence and the chickpea messaging was holding them back. So they wisely let go it, making way for a new communication hierarchy that prioritized flavor.” ~ learn more
Amazon’s wants to feed you with Amazon Saver. “Amazon is taking a page out of Aldi and Target’s playbook and launching a new line of budget-friendly food items in an attempt to attract price-conscious shoppers who are ditching name brands to save money.” ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
Solar will get too cheap to connect to the power grid. “In the US, the size of the grid connection queue has increased over 7x in the past decade, and 95% of the queue is solar, wind and batteries. The capacity in the queue is now more than twice the installed capacity of all existing U.S. power plants.” What to do with all the extra solar? Don’t you worry, people have ideas! ~ learn more