P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #402
New books?
my story 🚀
📚 I am seeking book recommendations! Are there any books you think I might enjoy? Please reply and let me know.
fun facts 🙌
An electronic chessboard without turns. Very impressive work! “Chess is boring… you spend literally half the time waiting for your opponent! There’s no way your internet addled brains could sustain such stimulation deficit, which is why I made this extremely over engineered electronic chess board that removes the concept of turns from the game entirely.” ~ learn more
When words and actions diverge: USA edition. “My argument is simple: people who say they want to see a return of American manufacturing don't actually vote with their dollar. Let me show you…” This is funny/sad/funny. ~ learn more
Is Enron back? From the Houston Chronicle: “Twenty-three years after Enron declared bankruptcy, the infamous Houston-based energy company appears to be making a return. A group representing itself as Enron, which became the center of a corporate scandal Dec. 2, 2001, following revelations of gross financial misconduct, has recently emerged in the Houston area. The company erected a billboard heralding Enron's supposed return, and has posted a statement on X promising a new leaf and a bright future for the company.” ~ learn more
Scientists find 1.5-million-year-old footprints of two different species of human ancestors at same spot. “More than a million years ago, on a hot savanna teeming with wildlife near the shore of what would someday become Lake Turkana in Kenya, two completely different species of hominins may have passed each other as they scavenged for food.” ~ learn more
oh, chicago 🏆
Rich Chicago residents are losing their shirts on real estate, says WSJ. “So it came as no surprise when Griffin, after selling a portion of his Chicago penthouse for a dramatic 44% loss last month, was quick to take a shot at Pritzker, blaming “failed political leadership in Illinois” for rising crime and declining luxury real-estate values in the Windy City. The saga took a bizarre turn, however, when the mystery buyer of Griffin’s 9 West Walton Street penthouse turned out to be none other than Pritzker himself.” Additional fun fact: one of our esteemed readers was quoted in this WSJ article! ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
There is no scaling wall. "I actually don't believe we are at all hitting walls in our space... the combination of the data that exists in the world, synthetic data, and search techniques are, I think, going to allow us to scale for quite some time." ~ learn more
The year algorithms learn to act. “In the bustling tech campuses of 2024, the age of passive AI – systems that merely respond to our queries – is giving way to something far more profound: the era of AI agents. As we look to 2025, we’re about to discover what happens when algorithms learn to act.” ~ learn more
How Mark Zuckerberg has fully rebuilt Meta around Llama. “Zuckerberg is now seen as a champion of “democratizing tech” among Silicon Valley developers—just two years after he and his company were being questioned, and sometimes mocked, for going all in on the metaverse, and vilified for having contributed to political polarization, extremism, and harming the mental health of teenagers.” ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
You must read at least one book to ride. “I was going to say that this was a post about how we should all take a moment to reflect on the unreasonable effectiveness of cracking open a book in the age of YouTube, but I guess what I actually want to say is do not under any circumstances encourage people to read books, it's easy money for the rest of us.” ~ learn more
Gimmicky product display boost sales. “In 2 field experiments and 4 online experiments, researchers found that: When a candy store displayed boxes of chocolates in a cylindrical shape (vs a standard cube), sales increased by 189.3% …” ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
Real-time inflammation monitoring. “A Chicago biomedical research hub backed by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, has produced its first published research — on discovering a way to monitor inflammation in real time using sensors implanted under the skin.” ~ learn more
thoughts of food 🍔
How honeycrisp apples went from marvel to mediocre. “The Honeycrisp apple was revelatory for me: It was an apple that I truly enjoyed eating on its own. And I did, for several years, until I noticed that the Honeycrisp apples I bought were, with increasing frequency, a miss. There were a few good ones here and there, but I often came across Honeycrisp apples that were dry and mealy.” ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
Should airships make a comeback? This 2023 video from Veritasium, a science focused youtube channel, offers a crash course on the topic. ~ learn more
Cargo airships are happening. “Airship Industries is designing its vehicle to dominate transoceanic air freight. It checks all the right boxes. It shortens end-to-end freight delivery time. It lowers freight handling costs, delays, and breakage. It’s highly profitable on a unit basis. It lowers fuel burn and carbon emissions by 75 percent without any sustainable fuel breakthroughs.” ~ learn more
UFOs are now UAPs, and there are many. The DoD just released its latest report. “To avoid half a century’s worth of baggage, the government avoided the term “UFO,” rebranding sightings as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). The A in the new name originally stood for “Aerial,” but was made more general to also cover weird things seen in space or oceans.” ~ learn more
on the blockchain ⛓
Someone won 13 ETH ($47k) by convincing an AI Agent to send all of its funds to them. “Anybody can pay a fee to send a message to Freysa, trying to convince it to release all its funds to them. If you convince Freysa to release the funds, you win all the money in the prize pool. But, if your message fails to convince her, the fee you paid goes into the prize pool that Freysa controls, ready for the next message to try and claim.” ~ learn more