P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #338

Stay in the game

my story 🚀

🍯 This weekend we’re celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Two staples of this holiday are apples and honey, which combine together as a sweet treat to represent the sweet year ahead. Shana Tova to all of you who celebrate.

i’ve been thinking 💭

Stay in the game. I love stories of people who grind at a problem for so long that eventually they catch a break. I heard one recently that floored me about a mother who worked tirelessly for 3 years to get her daughter’s medical school transcripts released from the alma mater in Cuba. The daughter had immigrated to the US and the school clerk decided to stonewall in retaliation. The mother tried for years to find an intermediary who might soften the clerk’s stance. Eventually, because she stayed in the game, things fell into place. She made the right connection who, with the help of their social standing (and probably cash), unlocked the records that allowed her daughter to begin her medical career in the US.

fun facts 🙌

The moment when the ATM finally made sense. “Selling people on the idea of a machine that spits out money was obviously not easy. But then a freak weather event happened, and everything began to click.” This is a neat story of how ATMs came to be. ~ learn more

Coffee-making equipment meets industrial CT scanner. They begin with the Moka Express, designed in 1933. “Until the 20th century, coffee was primarily enjoyed in coffee shops. That all changed when Alfonso Bialetti invented the Moka Express in 1933, inspired by a washing machine his wife used to do laundry.” ~ learn more

oh, chicago 🏆

Why Chicago is losing the war on rats. Be warned: cringy stories within. “An investigation by the Illinois Answers Project and Block Club Chicago shows that since the beginning of the pandemic, record rat complaints have overwhelmed city services. The city’s resources are stretched thin, and so many residents have complained that the city’s Inspector General’s office is auditing the Bureau of Rodent Control.” ~ learn more

tech, startups, internet ⚡

A ChatGPT MD success story. After several years of failed diagnoses for a young boy, his mother turned to the AI chat app. ChatGPT suggested a diagnosis of an extremely rare condition, which she took to a specialist who promptly validated it. Imagine how much more impactful this technology will be when its refined and put into the hands of medical professionals. ~ learn more

Advice for AI startups: sell work, not software. VC investor Sarah Tavel suggests that LLM-based software companies should avoid selling end-user productivity, and instead sell a complete work output. ~ learn more

The end of the Googleverse. What a wonderfully alarmist title. I don’t think the point this author makes is praticularly strong, but I do really appreciate the walk down memory lane with stories of Google Reader and Google Groups. ~ learn more

Single piece car casting. Rumor has it Tesla has figured this out. “CEO Elon Musk has often referenced how he has been inspired by Hot Wheels toy cars being made in a single cast piece and hinted that he would like Tesla cars to eventually be made like that.” ~ learn more

better doing 🎯

Lie still in bed. “In my search for ways to fix my sleep schedule, I came across a seemingly simple piece of advice: Lie still in bed. … Just like you can practice going to sleep at a reasonable hour, so can you practice keeping your bed made, liking a particular food, or doing collage.” ~ learn more

Seek first to understand. A story about consulting: “Whenever I arrive in a new context—a new client engagement or a new team in an ongoing gig—I seem to arrive right in the middle of something. A significant planning event, a technical design session for a major component, implementing a new productivity tool. Phew, it looks like I am just in time!” ~ learn more

Admitting what is obvious. “This happened to me recently. I admitted a truth that was probably obvious to everyone around me, but not to myself: I’m a writer. This sounds so obvious that it feels like it is a joke. I write a weekly column at a newsletter that I started—of course I’m a writer” ~ learn more

to your health ⚕

Why medtech firms are putting diabetes tech in consumer devices. “Abbott CEO Robert Ford has said he expects the consumer devices to contribute to the company’s goal of $10 billion in sales for its Libre business by 2028.” ~ learn more

under the microscope 🔬

The embryonic development of the Alpine Newt. Becoming, a short film by Jan van IJken. This is wonderful. ~ watch here

Simple fragrance method boosts cognitive capacity by 226%. It was a 43-person study of people ages 60-85. “The researchers also say they hope the finding will lead to more investigations into olfactory therapies for memory impairment. A product based on their study and designed for people to use at home is expected to come onto the market this fall.” The research was funded by Proctor & Gamble. ~ learn more

Bioengineered E. coli generates electricity from wastewater. "We engineered E. coli bacteria, the most widely studied microbe, to generate electricity," says Professor Ardemis Boghossian at EPFL. ~ learn more

thoughts of food 🍔

The science of great NYC bagels. This NPR article says it’s not the water, it’s the process. “Traditionally, Coppedge tells The Salt, the chilled dough rings are poached or boiled in a solution of water and malt barley for anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. This pre-gelatinizes the starch in the dough, locking the liquid inside of it and expanding the interior.” ~ learn more

thanks for reading!