P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #389

🦇 Bat bridge

my story 🚀

We went to go see the bats at the Congress Street bridge this week. Every night at dusk there’s a crowd of people hanging around waiting for the nocturnal creatures to wake up and start their day. This week we were among them. We saw a few flying around at freaky fast speed. But in truth, we didn’t get a great look at them, so maybe will have to try again another time!

fun facts 🙌

I looked up the word ‘yeeting’ on Urban Dictionary. And you can too. ~ learn more

Why the tomato was feared in Europe for more than 200 years. “A nickname for the fruit was the “poison apple” because it was thought that aristocrats got sick and died after eating them, but the truth of the matter was that wealthy Europeans used pewter plates, which were high in lead content.” ~ learn more

Can one get a deterministic output from an LLM? Not really. “The response itself depends on the amount of layers offloaded onto the GPU, and your drivers. Basically you can only get the same output with the exact same input with exactly the same setup, that's consistent, but change any variable just the slightest, and it'll diverge.” ~ learn more

Robot table tennis. “This work takes a step towards that goal and presents the first learned robot agent that reaches amateur human-level performance in competitive table tennis. “ ~ learn more

tech, startups, internet ⚡

Founder Mode doesn't fly if you’re a woman. Sophia Amoruso, the original girlboss, reminds everyone that when she went into founder mode she was canceled for being a ‘toxic leader’. ~ learn more

Tiktok lawsuit threatens Section 230 carveout. “Those protections, which are part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, said that online computer services couldn't be held liable for content posted on their platforms by third parties.” ~ learn more

What to do when AI agents visit websites instead of humans? “The future is all about catering to AI agent surrogates, not human eyeballs and clicks. Websites must pivot from attracting humans to empowering AI agents to get the job done. Get ready for this change—don’t get left behind.” ~ learn more

What will happen when the dust settles on AI copyright claims? “A handful of major news and music companies have agreed to license their content to ProRata.ai, a generative AI startup that claims it can accurately attribute and share revenues with content owners from AI chatbot subscriptions.” ~ learn more

better doing 🎯

The story behind Post Malone’s face tat. Catchy title, right? His face tattoo says “Always Tired”. This article is not actually about him, it’s about rest. ~ learn more

37signals and the case against group chat. I am a huge chat enthusiast, so in practice I disagree with this. “The perils of the modern communications conveyor belt that never ends, divides your attention, fractures your time, and chains you to FOMO.” ~ learn more

to your health ⚕

The engineering behind healthcare LLMs. “Today I’m chatting with Davis Liang at Abridge, the company that turns voice encounters in healthcare into reports, data, etc.. We’ve talked in the past about the business and product side of Abridge, but today I wanted to go a bit deeper on the engineering challenges a company building their own healthcare LLMs deals with.” ~ learn more

under the microscope 🔬

Common food dye turns live mice transparent. This sounds like science fiction, but I think it’s not. “In an effort to enhance the research abilities of biologists, Stanford University researchers have discovered that applying a popular food coloring to the skin of mice allowed them to see through to the rodents' internal organs and other structures.” ~ learn more or see study

Scientists develop new material for more efficient carbon capture. “Our new electrodes achieved up to 90% utilization of the active capture material, significantly outperforming previous carbon-based electrodes.” ~ learn more

thoughts of food 🍔

How to achieve a crispy pizza crust? Tips include a pizza stone or steel, olive oil in the dough, and moderation of sauce and toppings. ~ learn more

teaching the kids 👩‍🏫

Crafting AI-complementary skills and bulletproof assessments. “Universities face an unprecedented challenge. The knowledge and skills we’ve traditionally taught can now be replicated by AI within seconds. Surprisingly, there's little public discourse on how to adapt or innovate.” ~ learn more

The surge in college closures. “Over 500 private, nonprofit four-year institutions have closed in the last 10 years, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. That is three times what it was in the decade prior. Rachel Burns, a senior policy analyst at SHEEO, estimates at least 1.25 million students were affected by these closures. (Many more for-profit institutions have closed in this period as well.)” ~ learn more

big ideas 📚

Can solar costs keep shrinking? I shared a few months ago that the costs of panels keep declining, but the “soft costs” of projects have kept overall solar costs high. This post offers a positive outlook for how those costs might come down very soon. “But if your panels are cheap, you can basically dump them on the ground! No pilings, no racks, no trackers. Barely any SBOS! And since you don’t have heavy materials to transport, your logistics costs drop and you barely need any civil engineering: No need for big trucks to enter the farm, no need for infinite trenches to hide cables underground.” ~ learn more

thanks for reading!