A Roundup

I am trying a new type of post which is simply a hodgepodge of interesting things I’ve stumbled on lately and other somewhat random updates from my life. Let’s see if this is valuable to anyone (including me).

Podcast recommendations from the past few weeks:

I started putting out podcast recommendations on Twitter and Tik Tok and they’ve had some positive feedback so I wanted to try it here. Below are episodes I’ve listened to in the last month that I think offer a lot of value, good stories, or other useful information.

1.) This Week in Startups, Episode 1336: Introduction to Cana with David Friedberg

Fans of the “All In Podcast” will recognize David Friedberg as a fellow co-host or “bestie”. But in this episode of This Week in Startups David explains the aims and execution (product) for a new company called Cana that David is involved with. Cana describes itself as the first beverage replicator or even the first molecular assembler. The Cana product (now available for pre-order) is a box like appliance that sits on your kitchen counter and can make virtually any beverage you can think of. This includes wine, mimosas, cold brew, any flavor of sparkling water, orange juice, soda… the list goes on. The idea here is that nearly all of the beverages we enjoy are close to 90-95% water, with the rest of the drink being a unique combination of about 80 molecular compounds. So using water, and cartridges of these molecular compounds, Cana can replicate nearly any beverage. Plus, they let users choose the amount of caffeine, sugar, or even add vitamins to their drinks. Their wine scored a 92 on the 100-point scale, and they’re still improving it. So it’s safe to say that Cana works. Each month users put their used molecular cartridges out on the step to be picked up and recycled, a new one is shipped to them. Overtime, they learn which drinks you tend to drink a lot of and adjust the amount of each cartridge you receive (so someone who doesn’t drink alcohol would start getting less and less of the alcohol cartridge). Another aspect I thought was cool is that they will open up a kind of beverage dev ecosystem for folks to create and offer their own drinks on Cana devices (think Ariana Grande launching her “Cloud Latte” but directly on Cana). Their goal is to drastically reduce CO2 emissions associated with shipping beverages around, as well as eliminate plastic and other packaging waste. Skip to minute 37 for the Cana / Friedberg interview.

2.) Plain English with Derek Thompson: Russia + Ukraine episodes

Derek Thompson has been putting out amazingly informative podcasts on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since it started. He is an extremely smart and measured thinker and has a knack for finding guests equally smart and measured. There are episodes on the military dynamics involved, economic sanctions and punishments rolled out by the West, stories from Ukrainians, and more. Definitely recommend these for a good overview of the war that still goes deeper than the headlines. Episode 27 is where these start.

3.) Common Sense with Dan Carlin, Episode 323: Gas Up the Cold War

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast is a masterwork with a cult following. His less discussed podcast, Common Sense, is for more current topics. In this episode he gives his thoughts on the invasion of Ukraine and the historical context involved. Carlin is very good at making deep political concepts feel casual and easy to follow, and his knowledge is wide. A sobering and grounded survey of where we are at.

4.) Conversations with Tyler: Stewart Brand on Starting Things and Staying Curious

Tyler Cowen’s podcast has been the most consistently informative and world expanding podcast for me over the last few years. This episode with one of my heroes (part of the inspiration of this blog’s name), Stewart Brand, is incredible. Stewart Brand is most known for starting the campaign to pressure NASA into releasing a photo of the “whole Earth” in the late 60’s after an LSD trip gave him insight into how powerful that image would be. He went on to start the Whole Earth Catalog (using that NASA image as the first cover), CoEvolution Quarterly, and the Long Now Foundation. He assisted Douglas Engelbart with “the mother of all demos”, a presentation in 1968 where the earliest versions of the computer mouse, hypertext, and email were unveiled. He also helped launch the All Species Foundation to catalog every species on Earth and pioneered the idea of bringing back the Wooly Mammoth from extinction. In this episode Cowen and Brand touch on decentralization, Native Americans and how they influence Brand’s thinking, disagreements with Brand’s peers (Bucky Fuller, Norbert Wiener, Gregory Bateson), will humans make it to the stars, recent UFO material and the likelihood of intelligent life, graphic design of Whole Earth Catalog and how Brand made them, why the catalog ended, why Silicon Valley isn’t more interested in visual arts, San Francisco and hippies, future of San Francisco, Long Term thinking, ideal governance, architecture and “smart homes”, and much more.

5.) The Tim Ferris Show, Episode 573: Margaret Atwood

This episode was fantastic, I never knew Margaret Atwood was so funny and sharp. This episode is good for any writer or creative person. They touch on Atwood’s upbringing, her process, her poetry, resisting labels, her latest projects, NFTs (!), and more. Atwood is such a fun conversationalist, this episode felt like an energizing catch up with a friend.

Twitter

Interesting accounts I followed somewhat recently:

• @suhail: startups, product design. He is the founder of Mighty App, a company making Google Chrome faster and better.
• @katrosenfield: writing, politics. She has a knack for piercing through distractions and finding the heart of an issue.
• @_tamarawinter: writing, deep topics like energy + urban planning. She is the commissioning editor for Stripe Press and asks fantastic questions.
• @mollyfmielke: writing, cultural commentary. She is also at Stripe Press and started Moth Minds.
• @AlecStapp + @calebwatney: co-founders of the Institute for Progress, a think tank for accelerating technological + scientific progress. Read their announcement post if you haven’t!
• @Vernon3Austin: Austin Vernon writes these super in-depth overviews of important topics like Nuclear Energy and Solar (much more, those are two recent reads I loved). I highly recommend the nuclear energy one.

My most popular tweet of the week:

I am become, reply guy

This tweet unexpectedly became my most liked tweet of all time, and even got a like from the British High Commissioner to Maldives… For more on systems thinking, check out this great overview of the concept by Alex Guillien. The idea really has reframed how I think about the goals I set and how I perceive my own success in life.

Reading Recommendations

1.) What You’ll Wish You’d Known – Paul Graham

Getting started in life, not waiting to be taught and instead starting to learn, finding your path in life via cool projects and interesting questions. I sent this to my entire family because finding purpose is such a common struggle and this essay summarizes my thinking on it really well. One of my favorite lines, “But if you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right.”

2.) In our cashless society, we need to take digital jail seriously – Howard Anglin

This was written in response to the Canadian government’s financial punishment for the trucker protesters and those that donated to them. I think this a trend worth keeping a tab on.

3.) Lists of unsolved problems – Wikipedia

Spend some free time browsing these lists to ignite curiosity instantly. Some of my favorites from a twenty minute look: how do our organs know when to stop growing, why certain birds lay brightly colored eggs even though that seemingly makes them more vulnerable to predators, paradox of plankton, why do forest rings grow, homing mechanisms in animals (there is a newt that navigates by the stars!).

What I am spending time on lately

I’ve been working on two new side projects on weeknights. One has involved programming in Python which has been fun to learn. I am announcing one of these projects very shortly, and have a post for that announcement drafted already. It will get posted here when everything is ready so keep an eye out. Some cool things from these projects that are newish to me:

1. Replit: replit is an in-browser IDE (Integrated Development Environment). That means that you can go to replit.com and immediately start programming, compile, test and run your code right from the browser. It removes a massive barrier for many new programmers, which is the logistical hassle of setting up your coding environment and navigating all of the various pains of installing the correct packages for your needs. The design is incredible and the community is extremely helpful.
2. Bubble: Bubble is a no-code tool for building apps and websites. It is a “drag and drop” interface where you pull various elements from a toolbar, similar to some of the Adobe software interfaces. Bubble is very powerful, and even though it is a no-code tool, takes some serious thought and practice to achieve what you want. There are so many tools that it can be overwhelming. But stick with it. It has really provided value to me, specifically the way they handle databases, testing, and setting up ecommerce.
3. Python + BeautifulSoup: Like I mentioned above, one of my projects at the moment has involved learning Python. I have found it very approachable. For context, I have working knowledge of HTML, CSS, C++, and some JavaScript but am by no means an experienced programmer. But Python has been relatively painless. BeautifulSoup is a Python package that makes web crawling super simple. It has allowed me to pull relevant info from almost any website I want, and organize the info I retrieve.

Another new thing for me has been running. I’ve run somewhat off and on at various times in my life. But one of my New Year’s resolutions is to establish a more consistent workout routine (I am shooting for 52 workouts this year, or once a week), so I’ve made it a priority. I have run about 9 miles a week since the year started (3 miles, 3 times a week for the most part). I used to get completely destroyed by even a mile run. But my fiance, Tessa, got into running last year and advised me to run way slower than I felt I could. That trick got me started and helped me run further each session. Slowly, I’ve gotten down to a 8:40ish pace and enthusiastically anticipate my 3 mile runs. This past weekend I tried for 4 miles and it was the most blissful run of my life, I was my most relaxed and my average BPM was the lowest yet while my pace was 8:51/mile. Last thing about running for now: Tessa gifted me Murakami’s ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running‘ and it has been a great read. I find myself feeling calmer after reading from it, and his writing about running has helped me stay motivated and relaxed while on my own runs.

Last little update for now is that I’ve been reading before bed almost every night. So simple but it has made my nights so much better. Instead of spending that 30 mins – 1 hour before bed on my phone, I read on my kindle until I feel sleepy. It has been a good switch. I’ve read Jorge Luis Borges and now am reading Stephen King’s IT (creepy at night which makes it more fun).