Going post-crypto.
It’s not all sunshine and sparkles. “You can go down the rabbit hole into crypto. This is a post about getting out.” ~ learn more
The archive
2023 crypto developer report.
One of the lines of thinking I’ve embraced in the past was that when thousands of smart engineers work at something, magical things can happen. That remains true. “While developers overall are down 24%, the most valuable segment of developers (2+ year tenure who contribute the most code)…
How big is YouTube?
Google won’t just tell you, so these curious sleuths decided to find out by randomly sampling URLs. They estimate there are 13.325 billion videos. “We can calculate the mean and median views per video, and show just how long the “long tail” is – videos with 10,000 or…
How does a pool table recognize the cue ball?
Those of us who have played at a coin-operated table have noticed the cue ball has a special hole it comes out of after a scratch (accidentally hit the cue ball into a pocket or off the table). “You can tell small children it’s sorcery and they’ll probably…
Sharks can smell your blood in the water.
But it doesn’t smell tasty. “Sharks know the difference between fish and human blood and, while they can smell our blood, it is not a scent they associate with food.” ~ learn more
Deep dive into ReelShort.
A friend alerted me to this app recently. It’s growing very quickly in popularity. “ReelShort is a mobile app providing snackable streaming video tailored for the short attention spans of today's viewers.” ~ learn more
McKinsey’s 2023 global executive survey on autonomous driving.
“Our 2023 survey revealed that much has changed in this dynamic sector in the past two years: regional expectations are shifting, timelines for autonomous-vehicle development are extending, and needed investments are increasing.” ~ learn more
Against learning from dramatic events.
“The bread-and-butter of modern news, politics, etc, is having a dramatic event happen, getting shocked and outraged, demanding that something be done, and then devoting a news cycle or Senate hearing to it. We can’t just throw all that out, can we?” ~ learn more
Crispr pioneer Jennifer Doudna wants to tune microbiomes.
This is an interview with the Nobel prize winner about her current scientific pursuit of microbiome therapies. “Well, it’s become more and more clear that we are our microbiome. And that’s only become clear in the last, I don’t know, decade or so. Before that, there was a…
Heated tobacco is big in Japan.
It’s neither a cigarette nor a vape. The FDA authorized the marketing of it with ‘reduced exposure claim’ a couple years ago, but a patent dispute has kept the device out of the US so far. “Japan's massive reduction in cigarette sales is less the result of intentional…