P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #337

I think I'll call this the water issue

my story 🚀

🏊 Both kids are now independent swimmers

I had a quick visit to Chicago this week just in time to see the season shift, and now am back in Austin where it’s still peak pool weather. If anyone has any great water park recommendations (near Austin) please let me know!

fun facts 🙌

If you have never paid close attention to how a dog drinks water, today is your day.

Diamonds don’t hold their value forever. “De Beers has cut prices in the category by more than 40% in the past year…The impact on De Beers was clear…first half profits plunged more than 60% to just $347 million, with its average selling price falling from $213 per carat to $163 per carat.” ~ learn more

Beer goggles may be a myth, but liquid courage isn’t. “A new study that investigated the effect that drinking alcohol has on men’s perceptions of attractiveness may have disproven one well-known drinking-related phenomenon while providing supporting evidence for another.” ~ learn more

What’s a hell strip? It’s the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street that’s notoriously hard to grow plants in. ~ learn more

oh, chicago 🏆

Wicker Park’s Debonair Social Club closing permanently. Now the only vestige of this mainstay bar from my 20s is the Debonair Yacht, named in homage, that frequents the city’s floating party at Lake Michigan’s Playpen. ~ learn more

tech, startups, internet ⚡

Startup studios. This is by far the most complete collection of research into the venture studio model that I’ve seen. You’ll have to give up your email address for access and I think that’s a worthwhile trade. ~ learn more

SpaceX’s approach to exponential growth. VP of Launch Kiko Dontchev captures attention with a scrolling timeline depicting SpaceX’s launches since inception 13 years ago. The 100x ramp from rare to really really frequent launches is awesome. Watch this video for stories about how their “first principles approach to technology” helps engineers solve the right problems. ~ learn more

better doing 🎯

Less is more. On podcast Hidden Brain, Niro Sivanathan of the London Business School talks about how to make a convincing argument. If you have several points in support of your argument, it’s best to ignore the weakest ones. Instead of adding to your case, research shows they dilute the strength of your best points. ~ learn more

Scale, the Big-O problem. One of the problems I’ve had growing up in the small business world is underestimating the impact of scale. For example, when I ran eComfort, we mostly only needed one server to host our website. My lack of experience led me to believe my experience applied to bigger websites, but it mostly didn’t. “In computer science, Big-O notation is a way of talking about what happens to a solution method when the inputs start to increase.” ~ learn more

to your health ⚕

Why don’t multivitamins work better? “The majority of multivitamin meta-analyses haven’t found benefit, for uses ranging from cognition in cognitively healthy people to prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease. This might be hard for you to believe. Vitamins have a sheen of efficacy powered by tradition and ubiquity that’s hard to look past.” ~ learn more

retail therapy 💸

What happens to all the stuff we return? Here’s a well-researched piece about the reverse logistics industry. “A century ago, the average return rate at Penney’s was probably something like two per cent; before Internet shopping truly took hold, retail returns had risen to more like eight or ten per cent. Returns to online retailers now average close to twenty per cent, and returns of apparel are often double that.” ~ learn more

under the microscope 🔬

Quantum computer put to a real use. If anyone can explain how this works to me I’d appreciate it. "Using our quantum computer, we built a system that allowed us to slow down the chemical dynamics from femtoseconds to milliseconds. This allowed us to make meaningful observations and measurements.” ~ learn more

Recycling of used lithium-ion batteries. A team of researchers have developed a method of recovering lithium from anodes, rather than cathodes, without that pesky risk of fires and explosions. ~ learn more

big ideas 📚

How to produce green hydrogen for $1/kg. I’m really excited that we were able to join an investment syndicate into this company. “At Terraform Industries we believe in a future where energy is universally cheap, clean, and abundant. We’re developing a scalable electrolyzer to deliver the cheapest possible green hydrogen, which we use as a precursor chemical to make cheap synthetic carbon neutral natural gas in our Terraformer.” ~ learn more

on the blockchain ⛓

Scammers keep on scamming. These folks are playing a long game. “The scammers then create a transaction that mimics legitimate transactions from the wallet address prefix to the number of tokens sent to the address. This makes it look like their target has been the one constantly sending transactions to the wallet address they planted.” ~ learn more

thanks for reading!