Notes.
I've been in Taiwan for the past week, developing designs and helping oversee production for Brilliant Bicycles. I've enjoyed it very much; just being in a truly industrial place is one of my favorite things. But not only is it about seeing how stuff gets made; it's about the cultural and physical infrastructure that allows a culture to build value.
Which is kind of what this newsletter is about: Preparing oneself to create value, and cultivating a mind state that allows that process to flourish.
I'll be writing up more thoughts on my trip in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here's a video of cardboard boxes being made.
Pathing.
- Ben Thompson has some really interesting comments (and concerns) about Google's future.
- Get better at Bezier curves.
- A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates is a book, published in 1955 by the RAND corporation, that literally contains a bunch of random numbers - and was apparently really important in mathematics and science when it was published. Also, its Amazon Customer Reviews are pretty funny.
- The Mosuo culture is matrilineal and *super* interesting. In particular, check out their "walking marriages."
Building.
- Lockheed's announcement re: compact fusion is really interesting in contrast to the way that ITER's tokamak has been going.
- A *really* pretty video of some amazing Korean pottery being made.
- A Dutch team is working to breed potatoes that can survive on salt water.
Logistics.
- A super cool video showing the delicate process of quarrying marble blocks.
- An effort to allow bike & pedestrian traffic on the Verrazano bridge.
- 802.11ad is *fast*, but doesn't propagate through walls. :(
Reflecting.
- Your cat probably doesn't love you.
- A good overview of chili pepper rating scales, and how they're used.
- A bunch of photos from North Korea's "Air Koryo" airline, which is way outdated but all in all not half bad.
Stuff that doesn't fit into my dumb/arbitrary categories.
- Monte Carlo methods use random sampling to obtain numerical results.
- Craig Cannon's thoughtful take on how to buy your first road bike.
- Apparently NASA's 1960s codebase was *really* durable; they used it up into the 2000s.
And.
A bunch of *awesome* photos of the Maersk Triple-E being built.
Love, Spencer.
ps - Thank you to everyone - especially my friends at Gin Lane, Undercurrent, Brilliant Bicycles and on twitter - who referred me to everything here.
We should be closer friends. Coffee's on me.
