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What to Read

🚕 Cruise robotaxis blocked traffic for hours on this San Francisco street — TechCrunch

Anyone who's gotten stuck in a company's automated phone menu that couldn't route them to a relevant employee knows that automation is great until it's not.

When whole fleets of aircraft are grounded because of a computer error, that's inconvenient for passengers, but it doesn't otherwise interrupt urban life.

But what happens when an entire fleet of driverless cars stop operating? Robotaxi company Cruise provided us with a window into the future this week when its vehicles — which don't require an operator to sit behind the wheel — ceased operating.

The mishap comes less than a week after Cruise launched its first fully driverless, commercial robotaxi service in the city. Cruise’s vehicles are initially operating between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. on designated streets and without a human safety operator behind the wheel.

Cruise robotaxis stop operating, block traffic on San Francisco street – TechCrunch

More than a half dozen Cruise robotaxis stopped operating and sat in a street in San Francisco late Tuesday night, blocking traffic for a couple of hours until employees arrived and manually moved the autonomous vehicles. Photos and a description of the Cruise robotaxi blockade were shared to a Red…

TechCrunchRebecca Bellan

🍂 Is life lived in seasons? — RadReads

Khe Hy presents a cogent argument that life can be divided up into distinct phases, or seasons. A useful way to think about which season you're in and how to make the most of it:

The seasons analogy is a compelling one. After all, it makes sense to divide your life up into discrete buckets. Each season punctuated by its unique characteristics, such as your health, the status of your dependents, your finances and your relationships.

At 42 years old, here are some of my life seasons:

Is life lived in seasons?

You go to college, get job, get married, have a kid and then retire. Should you base your decisions on seasons? Or is it a trap?

RadReadsKhe Hy

What to Watch

📸 Will This New Invention be the Death of Photography? — Micael Widell

I'm continuing to link to DALL-E 2 content, because I don't think we fully appreciate the massive cultural shift that's coming. We just can't know the implications of artificial intelligence that can generate realistic photos, illustrations in any style, or even entire app interfaces out of just a single text prompt.

Micael Widell takes a stab at what this technological breakthrough means for photography specifically. Don't be put off by the clickbaity title — jump to the 5:38 mark to see how DALL-E can manipulate real images just as effectively as it can generate novel ones.

Tweets of the Week

Have a great week,‌‌‌‌‌‌
John

💗 A Jazz Drummer’s Fight to Keep His Own Heart Beating — NY Times

Milford Graves was a groundbreaking percussionist who combined his craft with the study of how music impacts the heart. In a tragic twist of fate, he was diagnosed with amyloid cardiomyopathy ("stiff heart syndrome") in 2018. So in addition to traditional treatment for it, he began applying his alternative techniques to himself.

Graves has passed away since Corey Kilgannon's article was published in 2020, but    far surpassed his doctor's initial estimate of having 6 months to live.

Since the 1970s, Mr. Graves has studied the heartbeat as a source of rhythm and has maintained that recording musicians’ most prevalent heart rhythms and pitches, and then incorporating those sounds into their playing, would help them produce more personal music.

He also believes that heart problems can be helped by recording a patient’s unhealthy heart and musically tweaking it into a healthier rhythm to use as biofeedback.

In recent months, Mr. Graves has been listening constantly to his own heart with a stethoscope and monitoring it with an ultrasound device he bought on eBay.

“It turns out, I was studying the heart to prepare for treating myself,” he said.

A Jazz Drummer’s Fight to Keep His Own Heart Beating (Published 2020)

Milford Graves devoted himself to studying the rhythms of the heart. It turns out he was creating a technique to treat himself.

NYTimesBy

See also: Theatre Synchronizes Audiences Heartbeats

☢️ Disney World Could Have Gone Nuclear — Forbes

James Conca shares the wild story of the era when Disney had ambitions to build a nuclear power plant and explains how it retains the authority to do so to this day:

Disney could not realize his vision unless he had permission from the Florida government to be autonomous. He really needed his own private municipality. So Florida created Disney’s private government and gave it the power to build roads and drains, levy taxes, issue bonds and have emergency services, powers usually reserved for a county government. […]

The nuclear angle was key to the futuristic plan for Epcot. Disney wanted this city to be self-reliant, and nuclear is the best way to do that. It was during an era more supportive of nuclear, more in need of big power and big dreams, and it wasn’t that long after Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative.

Disney World Could Have Gone Nuclear

In 1967, the State of Florida passed a law allowing Disney World to build a nuclear power plant. As bizarre as that sounds, it is more of a testament to the political power of the Mouse than anything nuclear. But they should explore an SMR to really go green in the vision of Walt himself.

ForbesJames Conca

💬 Internet ‘algospeak’ is changing our language in real time, from ‘nip nops’ to ‘le dollar bean’ — Washington Post

Like our environment, we shape our technology, and it shapes us in return. And since language is malleable, our vocabulary changes too:

“Algospeak” is becoming increasingly common across the Internet as people seek to bypass content moderation filters on social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch.

Algospeak refers to code words or turns of phrase users have adopted in an effort to create a brand-safe lexicon that will avoid getting their posts removed or down-ranked by content moderation systems. For instance, in many online videos, it’s common to say “unalive” rather than “dead,” “SA” instead of “sexual assault,” or “spicy eggplant” instead of “vibrator.”

Internet ‘algospeak’ is changing our language in real time, from ‘nip nops’ to ‘le dollar bean’

To avoid angering the almighty algorithm, creators on TikTok and other platforms are creating a new vocabulary.

The Washington PostTaylor Lorenz

Tweets of the Week

And speaking of our technology shaping us in return:

🎨 AI Art Isn't Art — The Intrinsic Perspective

The question of "what is art?" will only get harder to answer as computers take over increasingly sophisticated creative work. Erik Hoel has a thought-provoking piece on whether the coming tsunami of AI-generated "art" can even be called that:

[T]he worst-case scenario, wherein AI-art replaces a significant portion of human-art, will herald the arrival of a world in which much of the “art” that you see, especially online (where most eyeballs are) is generated by non-conscious machines with minimal human input. Behind the entire aesthetic of our civilization there will be a vast emptiness, a void communicating nothing. In such a world the art isn’t art, in the same way that a photograph of a hurricane doesn’t get anything wet.

AI-art isn’t art

DALL-E and other AI artists offer only the imitation of art

The Intrinsic PerspectiveErik Hoel

😌 Effortless Effort: Relaxing While Trying Hard — Zen Habits

Leo Babauta shares an experiment for changing the way you approach tasks. (Hint: Watching your breath is involved.)

If you talk to someone about “relaxing,” they will usually think of that as the opposite of “trying hard.” They think of lying on the couch, muscles relaxed, not doing anything. “Relaxing” is equated with “laziness” for a lot of people.

So “trying hard” and “relaxing” are seen as two opposite things.

What would it be like to try hard while relaxing?

Effortless Effort: Relaxing While Trying Hard - zen habits

By Leo Babauta I’ve noticed that a lot of us will be pretty wiped out at the end of a long day of work or social activity, to the point where we need time to recuperate from exhaustion. There’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s talk about the possibility of doing hard things without exhausting […]

zen habitsbreathe

Tweet of the Week

Speaking of equal and opposite:

🇺🇸 A Simple Plan to Solve All of America’s Problems — The Atlantic

Derek Thompson recently launched a new project called "Progress" at The Atlantic. It's "a special series focused on two big questions: How do you solve the world’s most important problems? And how do you inspire more people to believe that the most important problems can actually be solved?"

In a recent post, he lays out the framework for his answers to these questions:

In the past few months, I’ve become obsessed with a policy agenda that is focused on solving our national problem of scarcity. This agenda would try to take the best from several ideologies. It would harness the left’s emphasis on human welfare, but it would encourage the progressive movement to “take innovation as seriously as it takes affordability,” as Ezra Klein wrote. It would tap into libertarians’ obsession with regulation to identify places where bad rules are getting in the way of the common good. It would channel the right’s fixation with national greatness to grow the things that actually make a nation great—such as clean and safe spaces, excellent government services, fantastic living conditions, and broadly shared wealth.

This is the abundance agenda.

Thompson's arguments are thought provoking, and I appreciate his willingness to engage with these issues from the perspective of multiple ideologies.

And a note for readers outside the US: Although he's writing through an American lens, the issues in question — climate change, healthcare, etc. — are ones that every country has to grapple with.

A Simple Plan to Solve All of America’s Problems

The U.S. doesn’t have enough COVID tests—or houses, immigrants, physicians, or solar panels. We need an abundance agenda.

The AtlanticDerek Thompson

💊 Can Virtual Reality Help Ease Chronic Pain? — NY Times

The short answer to the headline's question, of course, is yes. We can create a world without chronic pain with VR, and with practice, that psychosomatic experience continues into the "real world" as well.

Our brains are extremely malleable, and we are only just starting to learn how to rewire them to ease chronic neurological issues.

In one module, patients pick up lotus flowers with their healthy arm and toss them into a serene infinity pond surrounded by mountains; the V.R. mirrors the action but shows the opposite arm doing the motions. Seeing themselves perform this novel action, in an unfamiliar environment that has no associations with pain, seems to create new neural connections that eventually help repair the dysfunctional parts of their brains.

[...]

If the brain predicts that an action will be painful, then “it’s going to send that threat signal out ahead of time,” Nguyen says. But if people experience themselves maneuvering more easily and with greater range in V.R., then their brains may begin to recognize that increased movement as safe — and, Nguyen hopes, eventually pleasurable.

Link →

💋 People Are Dating All Wrong, According to Data Science — Wired

Speaking of vulnerability and cultivating meaningful relationships, dating apps often lead us to pursue desirability, rather than compatibility. Even with the help of computers, predicting compatibility between two potential romantic partners is really hard.

Good romantic partners are difficult to predict with data. Desired romantic partners are easy to predict with data. And that suggests that many of us are dating all wrong.

So, what traits make people desirable to others?

[...]

The fascinating, if sometimes disturbing, data from online dating sites tells us that single people predictably are drawn to certain qualities. But should they be drawn to these qualities?

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz goes on to discuss what does predict romantic happiness, and his conclusion is remarkable:

How a person answered questions about themselves was roughly four times more predictive of their relationship happiness than all the traits of their romantic partner combined.

People Are Dating All Wrong, According to Data Science

Large data sets provide intriguing—and dismaying—insights into who we’re drawn to and how much that matters for our romantic happiness.

WIREDCondé Nast

Tweets of the Week

What to Read

📚 I'm Put on the Spot—and Forced to Defend the Humanities in a Room Full of Medical Students — The Honest Broker

What do doctors and writers have in common? They both grapple with the human condition for a living. Ted Gioia reminds us that we often do our best work when we can reach across disciplines:

But the students at the medical school who had invited me shared my love of the humanities. They very much wanted me to defend it as an essential part of an education. They told me that when they hired me for the gig. And even if I would never force ‘culture’ on anyone—that very practice violates the spirit of Western culture, in my view—I do feel it’s completely fair to nurture a young person’s curiosity and potential enthusiasm for the humanities as something they might pursue on their own.

So here’s what I said.

I’m Put on the Spot—and Forced to Defend the Humanities in a Room Full of Medical Students

I didn’t ask for this gig—so why did I ever agree to it?

The Honest BrokerTed Gioia

See also: My piece on Literature and Medicine.

⚪️ The Laws of Simplicity — Farnam Street

Simplicity is a common theme around here. I often talk about why it's better in the abstract, but how do we actually put it into practice? This summary of graphic designer and computer scientist John Maeda's book, The Laws of Simplicity, provides some answers.

His appreciation for complexity, and its relationship with simplicity, is particularly worth highlighting:

Concentrate on the deep beauty of a flower. Notice the many thin, delicate strands that emanate from the center and the sublime gradations of hue that occur even in the simplest white blossom. Complexity can be beautiful. At the same time, the beautiful simplicity of planting a seed and just adding water lies at even the most complex flower’s beginning.

The Laws of Simplicity - Farnam Street

John Maeda’s book, The Laws of Simplicity, proposes ten laws for simplifying complex systems in business and life. Think of it as simplicity 101.

Farnam Street

What to Watch

🧑‍🎨 Watch Picasso Make a Masterpiece — Royal Academy of Arts

I can't say this is my favorite painting from Picasso, but watching him work is mesmerizing:

Tweets of the Week

Reframing is powerful:

And so is persistence:

What to Read

🧘‍♀️ Mastering the Mind and Body: Conscious Control of the Autonomic Nervous System — Future Minds Lab

Eugene Kwok shares some extraordinary ways people can learn to control their autonomic nervous system, which regulates everything from our respiration to reflexes:

One particular study showed [that Wim Hof's] techniques led to the voluntary activation of the sympathetic nervous system including the release of the hormone epinephrine. Furthermore, after being injected with an endotoxin, his techniques led to suppression of the immune response and attenuation of the inflammatory response, leading to an absence of flu-like symptoms compared to controls.

What’s important is that Hof was able to train healthy volunteers to achieve the same effects. This suggests his ability to modulate the autonomic nervous system are not simply a consequence of any special genetic dispositions but rather something that can be learned and trained by anybody.

Mastering the Mind and Body: Conscious Control of the Autonomic Nervous System — FUTURE MINDS LAB

Since the times of the Greek physician ­­Hippocrates, the mind has been believed to play a significant influence on physiological processes, from stress and tension to health and disease. It’s no surprise then that attempts to master this connection between mind and body has been an active pursuit f

FUTURE MINDS LABEugene Kwok

What to Play

🤝 The Evolution of Trust

Nicky Case has a delightfully illustrated game that explains the game theory of trust. It highlights the fact that creating the right incentive structures is one of the most important things we can do as a society to nudge the world in the right direction.

Part of its conclusion: "'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' may be not just a moral truth, but also a mathematical truth."

And if you haven't already read it, I recommend starting with my primer on positive vs. negative sum games.

The Evolution of Trust

an interactive guide to the game theory of why & how we trust each other

What to Watch

🔊 Skywalker Sound

Don't be put off by the fact that this is technically an Apple ad. It's really a mini documentary on the Star Wars sound library and an absolutely beautiful love letter to sound design, not to mention a reminder that technology enables art:

Tweets of the Week

Let's head into this week with restaurant owner energy:

Art ❤️ Science:

What I'm Reading

🧼 The Surprising Afterlife of Used Hotel Soap — The Hustle

In Guerrilla Public Service, I wrote, "[T]he way our world is designed isn't inevitable or immutable. It's shaped by the people with the motivation and ambition to change it."

Shawn Seipler took this idea to heart 2008. When he realized that hotels were throwing away billions of pounds of soap every year, he saw it as an opportunity to bend our world in a better direction:

Every year, it has been estimated that the hospitality industry generates ~440B pounds of solid waste — much of it soap and bottled amenities. That’s the equivalent weight of 2m blue whales.

What happens to all that leftover soap?

Fourteen years ago, one man asked that very question. And the answer led him down a path that has since saved tens of thousands of lives all over the world.

The surprising afterlife of used hotel soap

Hotel guests leave behind millions of half-used bars of soap every day. A nonprofit is on a mission to repurpose them.

The HustleZachary Crockett

💸 The Nothingness of Money — More to That

In the words of Gumroad's founder Sahil Lavingia, "You can be twice as rich by deciding you need half as much." Like so many things, money is partly a story we tell ourselves that can be reframed.

Lawrence Yeo shares a thought-provoking and illustrated reflection on the role that money plays in our lives.

Conclusion: Real wealth isn't a number in your bank account, it's no longer needing to think about money.

We can opt out of the stories of religion or politics, but we cannot opt out of the story of money. It is so interwoven into the fabric of society that even our physical health depends upon how abstract numbers on a screen can be converted into tangible meals.

The Nothingness of Money - More To That

It’s the great everything and the great nothing.

More To ThatLawrence Yeo

What I'm Watching

🧩 The Puzzle of Motivation

Dan Pink argues that there is a considerable mismatch between what science knows and how businesses operate.

In short: When faced with problems that don't have an obvious solution, people are more creative and more effective at solving them when there's not a reward (e.g. bonus) tied to their solution.

Tweets of the Week

An important reminder that slack is important in any system:

🔨 Big Skills — Collaborative Fund

Morgan Housel argues that combining ordinary skills in unique ways can lead to spectacular results because they compound:

It’s tempting to want to find the one big skill that will set you apart. But most incredible things come from compounding, and compounding isn’t intuitive because the incremental inputs are never exciting on their own.

He goes on to list valuable skills that sometimes get overlooked. A few of my favorites:

• "Curiosity across disciplines, most of which are outside your profession."
• "The willingness to adapt views you wish were permanent."
• "Respecting history more than forecasts."

The full list is well worth a read.

🍼 Baby-Sitting the Economy — Slate

Paul Krugman recounts the story of a group of young professionals in the 1970s who formed a baby-sitting co-op. They created an arrangement where families could earn coupons for baby-sitting each other's kids. These in turn could be redeemed for having others watch their kids.

The coupons ("scrip") led to a sort of small economy forming, and with it, the challenges of managing one:

[F]or complicated reasons involving the collection and use of dues (paid in scrip), the number of coupons in circulation became quite low. As a result, most couples were anxious to add to their reserves by baby-sitting, reluctant to run them down by going out. But one couple’s decision to go out was another’s chance to baby-sit; so it became difficult to earn coupons. Knowing this, couples became even more reluctant to use their reserves except on special occasions, reducing baby-sitting opportunities still further.

In short, the co-op had fallen into a recession.

Amidst the current economic uncertainty, the full story is a fascinating look at how consumer psychology, monetary supply, and fiscal policy intersect.

And how, when you're growing a complex system, you have to be mindful of many interdependent factors.

🎶 A Stanford Psychologist Says He’s Cracked the Code of One-Hit Wonders — The Atlantic

What makes music popular? And what's the difference between a one-hit wonder and an artist who enjoys sustained popularity? Stanford psychologist Justin Berg proposes an answer to these question in a new paper:

“Novelty is a double-edged sword,” Berg told me. “Being very different from the mainstream is really, really bad for your likelihood of initially making a hit when you’re not well known. But once you have a hit, novelty suddenly becomes a huge asset that is likely to sustain your success.” Mass audiences are drawn to what’s familiar, but they become loyal to what’s consistently distinct.

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🔨 Big Skills — Collaborative Fund

Morgan Housel argues that combining ordinary skills in unique ways can lead to spectacular results because they compound:

It’s tempting to want to find the one big skill that will set you apart. But most incredible things come from compounding, and compounding isn’t intuitive because the incremental inputs are never exciting on their own.

He goes on to list valuable skills that sometimes get overlooked. A few of my favorites:

• "Curiosity across disciplines, most of which are outside your profession."
• "The willingness to adapt views you wish were permanent."
• "Respecting history more than forecasts."

The full list is well worth a read.

Big Skills

Scott Adams, the Dilbert creator, says he doesn’t have any extraordinary skills. He’s a pretty good artist. He’s kind of funny, an OK writer, and decent at business. But multiply those mediocre skills together and you get one of the most successful cartoonists of all time. A lot of things work like…

Morgan HouselMorgan Housel

🍼 Baby-Sitting the Economy — Slate

Paul Krugman recounts the story of a group of young professionals in the 1970s who formed a baby-sitting co-op. They created an arrangement where families could earn coupons for baby-sitting each other's kids. These in turn could be redeemed for having others watch their kids.

The coupons ("scrip") led to a sort of small economy forming, and with it, the challenges of managing one:

[F]or complicated reasons involving the collection and use of dues (paid in scrip), the number of coupons in circulation became quite low. As a result, most couples were anxious to add to their reserves by baby-sitting, reluctant to run them down by going out. But one couple’s decision to go out was another’s chance to baby-sit; so it became difficult to earn coupons. Knowing this, couples became even more reluctant to use their reserves except on special occasions, reducing baby-sitting opportunities still further.

In short, the co-op had fallen into a recession.

Amidst the current economic uncertainty, the full story is a fascinating look at how consumer psychology, monetary supply, and fiscal policy intersect.

And how, when you're growing a complex system, you have to be mindful of many interdependent factors.

Baby-Sitting the Economy

Twenty years ago I read a story that changed my life. I think about that story often; it helps me to stay calm in the face of crisis, to remain hopeful...

SlatePaul Krugman

🎶 A Stanford Psychologist Says He’s Cracked the Code of One-Hit Wonders — The Atlantic

What makes music popular? And what's the difference between a one-hit wonder and an artist who enjoys sustained popularity? Stanford psychologist Justin Berg proposes an answer to these question in a new paper:

“Novelty is a double-edged sword,” Berg told me. “Being very different from the mainstream is really, really bad for your likelihood of initially making a hit when you’re not well known. But once you have a hit, novelty suddenly becomes a huge asset that is likely to sustain your success.” Mass audiences are drawn to what’s familiar, but they become loyal to what’s consistently distinct.

A Stanford Psychologist Says He’s Cracked the Code of One-Hit Wonders

What separates Blind Melon from Shania Twain?

The AtlanticDerek Thompson

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🧮 The Polymath Playbook — Salman

Salman has some essential reading for anyone who follows this blog. He touches on the concept of ikigai, which I also recently wrote about, and explores the benefits of exploring multiple disciplines — an ongoing topic of mine.

You’ve likely heard the saying: “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” It warns against the futility of pursuing too many disciplines. Be a specialist, or you’ll be nothing.

It may surprise you to learn there’s actually an extended version: “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” With a subtle addition, its meaning becomes inverted to tout the benefits of being a polymath (a.k.a. generalist).

Why is the former so common, and the latter so unknown?

✨ DALL·E 2 and the Origin of Vibe Shifts — Divinations

In 2015, most cool websites looked like this:

Today, this aesthetic is way more pervasive:

What happened?

Nathan Baschez argues that when Unsplash made access to high quality photos free, it allowed everyone to copy the glossy photo aesthetic. Suddenly, great photos weren't scarce anymore, so companies started moving to illustrations as a way of signalling status.

I’m interested in this little piece of design history because today I think history is on the brink of repeating itself. Now that we have DALL·E 2 (and other AI image generators), a huge portion of visual vibes will become democratized. What Unsplash did to photography, DALL·E 2 will do to illustrations, 3D renderings, and eventually all visual styles.

In other words: a vibe shift is indeed coming.

(If you have trouble with the original link, this archived version should work — the original isn't loading properly for me right now.)

💼 Neurodiverse Candidates Find Niche in Remote Cybersecurity Jobs — WSJ

Another benefit of providing employees with work from home flexibility: A more inclusive workplace.

Typical office culture can be a tough fit for people with cognitive differences, but the mass move to remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic has made things easier for job seekers who are neurodiverse, an umbrella term that includes conditions such as autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia.

And More

💨 On March 29, wind power briefly became the second largest source of power in America for the first time ever. (Via The Hustle)

💰 NYC is going to require businesses to post salary ranges — a major step forward for pay transparency.

🪐 NASA's Mars Perseverance rover witnessed a solar eclipse on Mars, and Seán Doran created a stunning flyover of a Martian crater using imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

🐦 Tweets