Hi everyone!
A few weeks ago I came across a blog post by Ryan Holiday where he writes about the importance of having systems in your life. Ryan is a successful and incredibly productive author, having written a book a year for the past 10 years!
Like most of us, he felt he was too busy, too overwhelmed, too stressed. But instead of hustling through 2023, he slowed down. He pushed his next book by year. He spent more time with his family. But most importantly, he focussed on building “systems” so he can keep doing less in the coming years.
Why are systems so important to him? Because...
And systems will allow you to...
This post has resonated with me big time. So in the next few months, I'll be thinking about how I can create and adopt better systems in my life. To churn out more content more efficiently, to keep my workspaces tidy, etc.
Enjoy this edition of the newsletter!
Xavier
🤓 Cool Stuff I Found on the Internet
Why flight attendants sit on their hands for take-off
If you look at flight attendants during take-off and landing, you'll notice they will sit on their hands. This rigid posture actually minimizes the risk of injury during unforeseen emergencies!
Why time seems to pass faster as we age
Ever feel like time speeds up as you get older? That's not just your imagination. It boils down to how our brain processes and stores memories. Our brains are designed to predict and efficiently store new, surprising experiences. As kids, everything is novel, so our memories are vivid, making time feel slower. As adults, we experience fewer new things, leading to less detailed memories. This tricks us into feeling like time just rushes by.
Neuroscientist loses 25-year bet on consciousness
25 years ago, neuroscientist Christof Koch and philosopher David Chalmers made a bet about whether the mechanisms of consciousness would be understood by 2023. Despite many advances, we still don't understand consciousness. This raises a question: if consciousness is not well understood, how will we know if AI becomes conscious?
Why Christopher Nolan uses red scripts
Cillian Murphy revealed that Christopher Nolan hand-delivers scripts printed on red paper. This makes it difficult for the scripts to be illegally photocopied and leaked. Additionally, each actor who receives a copy of the script has their name watermarked on it. It’s perhaps outdated (you could just snap a picture of the script), but it’s a cool fact.
🧠🤖 Artificial intelligence
AI-powered software engineer
Meet Devin, a fully autonomous AI software engineer. You start by explaining what you want. Devin will then write code, explain what it’s doing, and ask for your feedback. This loop continues until you’re satisfied with the result. While Devin is way better than other coding assistants, it’s not perfect. Developers live for another day!
Is Claude 3 self-aware?
The newest version of Anthropic’s AI chatbot has a context window of 200,000 characters. To test how well the chatbot can recall data from the input data, engineers gave it documents about programming and startups. Somewhere hidden inside was a mention of pizza toppings. When the bot was asked about pizza, it not only found the reference in the input, it also “realized” it was being tested and noted how “out of place and unrelated” that was compared to the rest of the documents. Is this self-awareness? Or did Claude pick up this capability from its training data?
Klarna's AI handles 2/3 of support chats
Within just one month of going live, Klarna’s AI support agent has conducted 2.3 million conversations, proving its efficiency by undertaking the workload of 700 full-time agents. It has reduced repeated inquiries by 25%! The assistant supports 35 languages and will save Klarna $40 million this year.
xAI makes Grok open source!
Elon Musk’s xAI, has released its large language model (LLM), Grok, as open source, allowing anyone to use it for various applications, including commercial purposes. Grok has 314 billion parameters and surpasses many open source competitors. However, the company did not open source its training code or dataset, only the final model is available.
48% of news websites block OpenAI
This study found that 48% of news websites have blocked OpenAI from using their content to train future versions of ChatGPT. This move could affect the quality of future AI models and push OpenAI to compensate authors for their work.
👽 Space
SpaceX to sell satellite laser links to rivals
In the last edition I featured an article explaining how SpaceX uses lasers to create a mesh network between its Starlink satellites. The company now wants to commercialize this technology and sell it to other satellite manufacturers. This would allow them to have a high-speed internet connection without building expensive ground stations.
What are Hubble and JWST looking at right now?
This cool website allows you to see where Hubble and the James Web Space Telescope are currently pointed at. Including a description of the target and which research program it's working on.
Das Marsprojekt
In 1952, Wernher von Braun published “The Mars Project,” a comprehensive technical plan for a manned mission to Mars. That’s a decade before the launch of Sputnik! The plan is only 91 pages long and isn’t obsolete. It contains a guide on how to go to Mars, designs for spacecraft and even trajectories.
⚡️ Energy & Environment
Artificial reefs made from sunken ships
Decommissioned ships or old concrete pipes can create artificial reefs and boost marine life. In the US, 7 square miles of seafloor have been transformed that way. In 2006, the US deliberately sunk an aircraft carrier to create the largest artificial reef in the world, named the Great Carrier Reef.
CATL to cut battery prices in half
The largest battery manufacturer in the world is cutting prices by 50%! CATL's new battery cells will be sold to EV manufacturers at just $56/kWh. This price reduction could lead to more affordable EVs and boost adoption rates. In 2014, Tony Seba predicted that battery prices would reach $50/kWh by 2027. Seems like Chinese manufacturers will reach that price point a bit earlier!
Where you rank in the world population
Enter your date of birth, country, and gender, and this tool will tell you how many people in the world are older than you, how long you will live, how long you would live in a different country, and with how many people you share your birthday with. For me, it’s quite surprising. I’m turning 30 this year, and yet I’m older than 47% of the world population! I’ll die in 2080 at age 86, and if I were to live in the US, I would die 2 years earlier.