P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #330

Sometimes there is no subtitle.

my story 🚀

fun facts 🙌

Restaurant brothers. “I decided today that I’m going to see if I can find the restaurant with the highest number of brothers.” This thread starts at “2 Bros Pizza” but does not end there. Internet collaboration at its finest. ~ learn more

An ‘aggressive’ sea otter is snatching surfers’ boards. “There is no clear explanation for the sea mammal’s behavior, say authorities, who has been seen riding and gnawing surfboards” ~ learn more

tech, startups, internet ⚡

How an infant formula startup recovered from an FDA recall. A bit of publicity almost killed this startup, Bobbie, by drawing the attention of regulators to their pilot. This is the story of how they turned the situation around and capitalized on the moment. A couple years since this article was written, they have revenues over $100 million and more than 100 employees. ~ learn more

GPT-4 is getting worse over time, not better. This mirrors my (very limited) personal experience. “At least one study shows how the June version of GPT-4 is objectively worse than the version released in March on a few tasks.” ~ learn more

AI and the automation of work. From writer and investor Ben Evans. “ChatGPT and generative AI will change how we work, but how different is this to all the other waves of automation of the last 200 years?” ~ learn more

better doing 🎯

Proof you can do hard things. “When a precocious yet nonconformist teenager asks why they need to learn calculus, what should you say? “ ~ learn more

Excellence is a habit, but so is failure. “We often hear that making small incremental improvements every day can lead to great things. … But there’s another side to this story that we don’t discuss as often: how incremental neglect and small missteps can accumulate and lead to negative outcomes.” ~ learn more

You suck at Excel, with Joel Spolsky. This private presentation to an audience of engineers is now available on Youtube and its great. Joel was a program manager on the Excel team in the early ‘90s. “The way you are using Excel causes errors, creates incomprehensible spaghetti spreadsheets, and makes me want to stab out my own eyes. Enough of the =VLOOKUPs with the C3:$F$38. You don't even know what that means.” ~ learn more

to your health ⚕

Meet the psychedelic boom’s first responders. “With more tripping will come more psychic terror. A new movement of volunteers will guide you through your brain melt.” ~ learn more

under the microscope 🔬

Computer chip with built-in human brain tissue. “Last year, Monash University scientists created the "DishBrain" – a semi-biological computer chip with some 800,000 human and mouse brain cells lab-grown into its electrodes. Demonstrating something like sentience, it learned to play Pong within five minutes.” ~ learn more

big ideas 📚

White paint to help cool a hot planet. A professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University has created the whitest paint on record. “The paint’s properties are almost superheroic. It can make surfaces as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than ambient air temperatures at midday, and up to 19 degrees cooler at night, reducing temperatures inside buildings and decreasing air-conditioning needs by as much as 40 percent.” ~ learn more

Innovative small wind turbines. “Our approach to sustainable energy is creating sleek, innovative, efficient, and aesthetic turbines, with the goal of making them a centerpiece of a worldwide renewable energy movement.” ~ learn more

on the blockchain ⛓

Ripple’s partial win against the SEC. I have not been closely following this case and also am not an attorney, so it’s surprising to me that the problem was sales to professional investors rather than consumers. But there’s some logic buried within. “Institutional sales of the tokens violated federal securities laws, but programmatic sales did not, a court ruled.” ~ learn more

staying thirsty 🚰

Why is desalination so difficult? “An overview of seawater desalination: removing salt to make drinkable water from the ocean.” This is a great video from the YouTube channel Practical Engineering. ~ learn more

thanks for reading!