P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #325

Meetup scheduled for June 29th!

my story 🚀

Annual Wisconsin Camping Trip 🏕️

📅 By popular demand, we have the date for the Subscriber Summer Meetup. Please join us at 5pm on June 29th, 2023 in the West Loop (exact location tbd).

fun facts 🙌

On the literary roots of Die Hard. I had no idea that the spectacular Bruce Willis movie has origins in a book. This was a fun origin story! ~ learn more

Pygmies stay short to live longer. I had to look up the definition of a pygmy: “In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short.” New research from Cambridge University anthropologists suggests an interesting reason for their shortness. “Their survival as a people depends on hitting puberty early and prioritizing reproduction over physical growth. This has pressured them to evolve into a shorter people.” ~ learn more

Why octopuses are building small “cities” off the coast of Australia. They were thought to be loner animals, but the evidence to the contrary is growing. “The researchers also got a lot of footage of what can only be called octopus evictions. One octopus would reach into a burrow and pull its occupant out, then move in.” ~ learn more

tech, startups, internet ⚡

Bet-the-company ideas. “The big late-stage pivots tend to look too early from the outside and to feel too late from the inside.” ~ learn more

The secret history of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and OpenAI. Everyone loves some good gossip about tech celebrities, right? ~ learn more

Photoshop’s new feature. It’s called Generative Fill and it looks powerful. This is a set of tweets with videos. I think “The Construction of a Neon City” is great. ~ learn more

better doing 🎯

The right side of thought. One one end of the thought see-saw is rumination, and on the other reflection. Sit for a minute in silence. “That minute of silence will feel like an hour of incessant chatter, with each thought maniacally screaming out for some of your valuable attention.” So the right side of thought is reflection. “Ideas are the software that run on the hardware of our minds, and reflection is the only tool we have to reliably maintain and update it.” This post has adorable illustrations. ~ learn more

Satisficing vs maximizing. “Studies show that although Maximizers make better choices Satisficers enjoy their choices more, and of course spend less time and create less stress in making the choice.” ~ learn more

under the microscope 🔬

Reanimated hearts donated after death work just as well for transplants. So incredible! “A new method of heart transplantation that uses machines to reanimate donor hearts from people who have died is just as good as traditional heart transplantation, a new study finds. If adopted broadly in the U.S., the procedure that could expand the donor pool by 30%.” ~ learn more

Zapping the brain during sleep helps memories form. It’s a small sample size of 6 people who had electrodes implanted into their brains. “The following morning they all performed better on the memory test than they had after a night with no stimulation.” ~ learn more

Lung cancer pill cuts risk of death by half. After surgery, the drug improved survival rates from 78% to 88%. “Overall, there was a 51% lower risk of death for those who received osimertinib compared with those who received placebo.” ~ learn more

thoughts of food 🍔

12 “healthy” foods that actually aren’t that healthy. Say it ain’t so, veggie chips… The content team at Nutrisense is on fire with the high quality nutrition education! ~ learn more

big ideas 📚

"Walking" anchor and plasma drill promise cheap, deep geothermal power. Most of us don’t think about drilling technology very often despite our reliance on it. Fracking (adjacent tech to drilling) greatly increased the supply of natural gas in recent decades. This innovative technology that could meaningfully lower the cost of drilling deep into the Earth may greatly increase the supply of geothermal energy for future decades. ~ learn more

Does the U.S. government want you to believe in U.F.O.s? This is an interesting opinion piece published in the NYT. ~ learn more

profiles of people 🚶

Austin billionaire Steve Kuhn’s mission to be the pickleball king of the world. I think I need to visit this place when I’m back in Austin: “Here at Dreamland, you’ll find multiple mini-golf courses, disc golf, two outdoor live music stages, psychedelic art installations, a bar, and 16 courts dedicated to the fastest growing sport in America: pickleball.” Kuhn is also the majority owner of Richard’s Rainwater, which I’m fond of! ~ learn more

thanks for reading!