P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #401
Hikes!
my story 🚀
🌄 We spent the holiday week in California with family and lots of sunshine. Proud of the kids who took on several big hikes without being carried and with minimal complaining.
Welcome to December, folks!
fun facts 🙌
It’s hard to resign in Japan. “He contacted the resignation agency Momuri, whose name translates to “I Can’t Take This Anymore.” For around ¥22,000, they handle the entire resignation process, contacting the boss on behalf of the client, negotiating with the company, and even recommending lawyers if legal disputes arise.” ~ learn more
1 dataset 100 visualizations. You are not limited to the few charts that Excel recommends! This is really impressive. ~ learn more
The largest predation event ever observed in the ocean. “As the capelin shoal formed a sort of ecological "hotspot," the team observed individual cod begin to group together in response, forming a huge shoal of their own. The swarming cod overtook the capelin, quickly consuming over 10 million fish, estimated to be more than half of the gathered prey.” ~ learn more
oh, chicago 🏆
Chicago’s getting a boat show. “The Chicago International Boat Show at Navy Pier Marina will take place from August 21st to August 24th, 2025, at Navy Pier, an iconic waterfront destination in the heart of Chicago.” ~ learn more
oh, austin 🤠
Austin Gift Guide 2024. “Welcome to the very first Holiday Gift Guide from the Austin Business Review. Inside these pages, you'll find dozens of fun, quirky products – from those TikTok-viral coloring books to THC-infused chocolates and cocktails, and lots of stuff in between.” ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
When AI can hear, it can see. “Our study found that acoustic environments contain enough visual cues to generate highly recognizable streetscape images that accurately depict different places," said Yuhao Kang, assistant professor of geography and the environment at UT and co-author of the study.” ~ learn more
Will standards take hold for to AI models? In the history of computing, standards always seem to emerge and supercharge development (USB anyone?). From Anthropic: “Today, we're open-sourcing the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data lives, including content repositories, business tools, and development environments. Its aim is to help frontier models produce better, more relevant responses.” ~ learn more
US Army wants to ditch the generators and just beam power. “Raytheon … has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Army to work on directed energy wireless power beaming capabilities that will distribute power across the battlefield, simplify logistics, and safeguard locations for U.S. troops.” ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
Is employee performance really Gaussian distributed? Spoiler — nope. “The unspoken first step here was to assume a Gaussian bell curve when it comes to employee performance. And, heck, why not? The folks in HR who were paying attention during psychology class recall that a great many things in this world follow a Gaussian distribution, including traits that have predictive power when it comes to workplace performance. IQ is Gaussian.” ~ learn more
to your health ⚕
The vaccine question. Justin Mares bravely tries to open the Overton Window on the topic of vaccines. Nuanced views here are a wonderful thing. If your first thought was, “oh geez, an anti-vaxxer”, this post might be just what you need. ~ learn more
retail therapy 💸
Couple accused of stealing $1 million worth of Lululemon. It’s nice to know that at least some retail theft is pursued by police. “Court documents allege that the couple pulled off their scheme in Minnesota, New York, Colorado, and Utah and that they varied their tactics. Sometimes they would work together to distract store employees or block the view of store security cameras. Sometimes Richards would buy something, then place a sensor in his bag to cause a seeming false alarm to go off while Lawes-Richards walked out with stolen items.” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
Sensitive ceramics for soft robotics. “Together with his team, Clemens is developing soft sensor materials based on ceramics. Such sensors can "feel" temperature, strain, pressure or humidity, for instance, which makes them interesting for use in medicine, but also in the field of soft robotics. This work was published in the journal Advanced Intelligent Systems.” ~ learn more
Humans can pause embryonic development. “Some mammal species have an ability known as embryonic diapause, in which the development of an embryo can be paused for weeks or even months, keeping the blastocyst from implanting in the uterus. This means the animal can wait out food scarcities or unfavorable seasons, and restart the pregnancy when conditions improve, better ensuring the survival of mother and young.” ~ learn more
teaching the kids 👩🏫
How equity language derails real education reform. “This language (i.e. “Educational justice”) works through moral pressure rather than reasoning. They don’t engage on the content of the proposal or idea and instead transform policy disagreements into character judgments. ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
This AI chatbot got conspiracy theorists to question their convictions. I really struggle with the assumption here that because something is a ‘conspiracy theory’ it necessarily is wrong and needs debunking. Maybe someone ought to make a chatbot that helps people who think there are no conspiracies question their convictions. “Researchers have shown that artificial intelligence (AI) could be a valuable tool in the fight against conspiracy theories, by designing a chatbot that can debunk false information and get people to question their thinking.” ~ learn more
on the blockchain ⛓
I haven’t shared any blockchain-related links in a while, and that’s partly because I haven’t found any interesting ones in a while. Meanwhile, the price action on Bitcoin etc. imply lots of recent interest. Consider this a cry for help — send me your links!
profiles of people 🚶
The untold story of Marie Curie’s network of female scientists. “The double Nobel Prize winner is most famous for her discovery of radioactivity, as well as the radioactive elements radium and polonium. She is less well known for encouraging a generation of women who worked in her lab and went on to work in research because of the path she paved.” ~ learn more
Is Chicago’s Don Wilson the smartest man in trading? “Call me any time, any day or night, I will give you a price on whatever portfolio you want,” Don Wilson told a senior CME executive multiple times ahead of the crisis.” ~ learn more