Hi there, good morning. Hereās a question for ya.
What does Tim Urban and William Zinsser have in common?
They both can take a piece of extremely convoluted topic and produce something that is a joy to read by processing it through an inbuilt computerāāātheir brain. Interestingly, the 198 page spanning document I was reading about recently was onĀ Neuralink and Brain-Machine Interfaces, written by Tim.
In one of the chapters, Tim kidnaps a fictional character namedĀ BokĀ who is supposedly our ancestor from 50,000 years ago, and brings him to 21st century. Bok is whizzed past all the inventions weāve had since his time: airplanes, submarines, telescopes, TV, iPhone. Finally, after Bok is thoroughly flabbergasted, Tim shows him how we converse with each other today. Take a look below.
ā¦
That image of a disappointed Bok made me think about an even more disappointing topic:Ā we have taken great strides in dissipating information out to the world but are still walking baby steps in the way we consume andĀ retainĀ information.
I sat down at 4:00 PM yesterday to write this article, and by the time I was 90% complete, it was 9:30 PM. Initially, I wanted to limit it to just talking about FOMO, but I realized just how interconnected it all was: information overload, FOMO, building a second brain. I couldnāt help it. So, I made it a two part series.
In Part I, I will talk about the rise of information overload and how you can be mindful of the content you consume. In Part II, I will walk through how you can retain and reuse the content that you end up consuming mindfully, with the use of technology.Ā
Read the rest of the article here. I think youāll really like this one.
Hereās an app that will make you more grateful āŗļø
I found out about HappyFeed when I was searching for a voice-to-text journaling app on ProductHunt. Iāve tried all forms of journaling: writing in a diary, speaking into a recorder, typing on a computer. Nothing stuck. Iām still on my quest to find (or build) a voice-to-text journaling app, but now my quest for a gratitude journaling app is over.
A few things to love about this product:
a) Terribly simple interface: So simple that you are not distracted by anything other than typing the three good things of the day. Thatās the sign of an effective app.
b) Daily reminders: Instead of a standard push notification, every day the app reminds you with a fun fact or a prompt.
c) āExtra specialā days emoji: We all have those extra special days when something truly memorable happens. For those days, you can tag it with a special emoji which pops out in your calendar as you look back over the weeks.
Overall, it gets the job done. Gratitude journaling is proven to work. Hereās a testimonial from the Founder - Matt Kandler - himself. āBelieve it or not, Happyfeed was originally just an experiment to learn how to code iPhone apps. Nearly 7 years later, itās a pretty robust journaling app! Iāve been using Happyfeed for 1780 days now and I can say itās made a significant impact on my life.ā Iāve been using it for seven days now. And lovinā it. Hereās a glimpse:
I canāt help it. Too emotional.
Are you enjoying this so far? Fantastic. Why not tag me in an Instagram story and tell me what youād like to read about next?
Brain food from the internet š
Business:Ā The weird hate-love relationship with Spirit airlines
Spirit airlines wouldnāt be a top three favorite for most people. āWho doesnāt fly Spirit and have a bad experience? Spirit is just a notoriously awful airline and super easy to make fun of,ā says a Reddit user. But hereās the real punchline: The airline also happens to be a success. āSpirit is consistently incredibly profitable,ā says Madhu Unnikrishnan, editor ofĀ Skift Airline Weekly. This article dives in to explain this enigma.Ā Read moreā”ļø
Product Management:Ā Finding that product-culture fit
We frequently talk about the reality that there is no single definition for the responsibilities of a product manager and that product management roles differ meaningfully across companies. Sachi says the root of this comes from the fact that fairly unique product cultures often develop within each company. While a company like Google is engineer driven, Salesforce is completely driven by well.. the sales force. Understanding the product-culture of the company can be of great help.Ā Read moreā”ļø
Neuroscience:Ā The Thought Experiment
This is an old one, but greatly futuristic for its time. I read through this while reading Tim Urbanās book on Neuralink. We all hear about people controlling a robotic hand or leg with their mind. An experiment conducted a few years ago at University of Pittsburgh made this a reality. The researcher who planned it is Andrew Schwartz, a lean Minnesotan whose laboratory occupies a sunlit floor dominated by three gray metal towers of equipment that are used to monitor monkeys in adjacent suites.Ā Read moreā”ļø
Technology:Ā The Zombie Apocalypse Scale
If you work in the sphere of tech, thereās a good chance youāve come across this debate: Is WeWork a tech company or not? Can Duruk tries answering that with a weird zombie apocalypse scale. āHere's the idea: Instead of looking for a binary outcome for this question, let's agree that tech-companiness is a spectrum. There are probably some discrete stops, but let's ignore that for now. And then, let's establish a quantifiable metric, something that we can compare companies across.āĀ Read moreā”ļø
Book thatās keeping me company š
Good Economics for Hard TimesĀ by Abhijiit Banerjee and Esther Duflo:Ā Strangely, I donāt remember why I badly wanted to read this. But it was a good decision. Abhijit and Esther both recently won the Nobel Prize for economics. In this book, they break down some of the most incomprehensible topics of today: trade, immigration, inequality, and more. Mind you, every page in this book is packed with case studies and insightful ideas. So if you plan to pick it up, donāt rush through it. Consume 30 pages every day and mull over them after you close the book.
Hi there! If youāre feeling generous, can you like this post on Substack? It would greatly improve the visibility. You can follow me onĀ InstagramĀ for fun life stories andĀ LinkedInĀ for not-so-fun life stories. EmailĀ ask@bsoundarya.comĀ for questions.
Aaand.. youāre awesome. Donāt forget that. :)