under the microscope

A structure design that shrinks when pulled.

Thankfully there’s a video, since this is hard to imagine. “We’ve shown that mechanical systems can be designed to behave in ways that seem almost paradoxical,” says Bas Overvelde, principal investigator of the Soft Robotic Matter Group.” ~ learn more

retail therapy

How much of the U.S.’s exports are made of blood?

The Economist wrote it was ~2%. Seems high? “The article doesn’t explain how they arrived at 1.8%. And since the Economist speaks in the voice of God (without bylines), I can’t corner and harass the actual journalist.” So, this blogger […]

better doing

Why be a ghost?

“Will we be an ancestor to our children…or a ghost? Will we support and guide? Will we haunt and plague? Will our presence fill them with joy and comfort…or fear and pain?” ~ learn more

better doing

How to title your blog post or whatever.

“A title has two goals. First, think of all the people in the world who, if they clicked on your thing, would finish it and love it. Ideally, those people would click. … Other people will hate your thing. It’s […]

tech, startups, internet

Mortgage your 401(k).

Matt Levine covers a new startup offering that allows savers to leverage their retirement accounts 4:1. “There are no margin calls or mark-to-market triggers. If the market falls below a certain level, you aren’t forced to liquidate. The financing is […]

tech, startups, internet

OpenAI’s prompting guide for GPT-4.1.

“GPT-4.1 is trained to follow instructions more closely and more literally than its predecessors, which tended to more liberally infer intent from user and system prompts. This also means, however, that GPT-4.1 is highly steerable and responsive to well-specified prompts […]